Sanders’s Economics Agenda: “Magic Flying Puppies with Winning Lotto Tickets Tied to Their Collars”

(p. A9) WASHINGTON — With his expansive plans to increase the size and role of government, Senator Bernie Sanders has provoked a debate not only with his Democratic rival for president, Hillary Clinton, but also with liberal-leaning economists who share his goals but question his numbers and political realism.
. . .
By the reckoning of the left-of-center economists, none of whom are working for Mrs. Clinton, the proposals would add $2 trillion to $3 trillion a year on average to federal spending; by comparison, total federal spending is projected to be above $4 trillion in the next president’s first year. “The numbers don’t remotely add up,” said Austan Goolsbee, formerly chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, now at the University of Chicago.
Alluding to one progressive analyst’s criticism of the Sanders agenda as “puppies and rainbows,” Mr. Goolsbee said that after his and others’ further study, “they’ve evolved into magic flying puppies with winning Lotto tickets tied to their collars.”

For the full story, see:
JACKIE CALMES. “Left-Leaning Economists Question Sanders’s Plans.” The New York Times (Tues., FEB. 16, 2016): A9.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date FEB. 15, 2016, and has the title “Left-Leaning Economists Question Cost of Bernie Sanders’s Plans.”)

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