The DSA agenda may cost $200 trillion. Guess who pays for it? | Opinion - USA Today

Suspend reality for a minute and imagine this: Capitalism has been overthrown. You have the day off. Your worries? Gone.

“You work as much as you are able and no more than needed, and you would control your own labor and see it going to good use. It’s not just a job to pay the bills.”

“Speaking of bills: you don’t really have them anymore,” the website cheerily proclaims. “You have no debt. You don’t need health insurance. You don’t pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right. Your retirement is publicly funded. Food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation aren’t for-profit businesses; they are common goods and utilities.”

Now, the fantasy world the DSA and other progressives envision strikes me as downright terrifying, for more reasons than one.

Let's focus on just one piece of this socialist la-la land: affordability.

It's become the buzzword for the November midterm elections, as Democrats seize on voter frustration over high gas prices and other economic concerns.

Voters may not be thrilled with how President Donald Trump and Republicans have handled the economy the past two years. But if the many democratic socialists on the ballot got everything on their wish list, things would get much worse – and the middle class would be stuck with the bill.

Building the carefree world that democratic socialists envision would take an enormous amount of spending.

Adam Michel, director of tax policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, set out to tally just how much the DSA platform would cost – and who would be on the hook for it.

From universal health care to housing for all to paid family leave to free college, the bill over the next 10 years could top $200 trillion, according to Michel’s estimates published Aug. 11. 

The DSA insists that "the richest individuals and corporations" would foot the bill.

Not so. As Michel's research shows, "Confiscating every dollar of high-end wealth and corporate profits" would cover only a sliver of it.

“There’s no conceivable world in which you can fund this agenda with just higher taxes on high earners or wealthy people in America,” Michel told me. “How will this be funded? The very clear answer is the way that every other large welfare state around the world funds their big government. And that is with higher taxes on the middle class.”

That’s the truth that Democrats never want to say. Their big promises come with hefty price tags that belie their message on affordability. 

Look at California, where Democrats who run state government already face serious budget shortfalls just to fund existing public assistance programs, including Medicaid.

To help cover those costs, a measure on the November ballot would impose a "one-time" 5% wealth tax on the state's billionaires.

Economists warn, however, that the tax could backfire by driving some of California's wealthiest residents out of the state. Some have already left. Losing their income tax revenue for good would leave the state in even worse financial shape, as Joshua Rauh and Benjamin Jaros, fellows at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, have laid out.

History isn't on the tax's side, either. Of the 12 industrialized countries that had a wealth tax in 1990, nine – including France, Germany and Sweden – had repealed theirs by 2025 because it proved ineffective and counterproductive.

Even California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, opposes the proposed billionaire tax, warning of the fallout for his state. Yet the likely 2028 presidential contender favors a national billionaire tax – which would do even more damage.

California may yet dodge this mistake: Just 45% of likely voters backed the tax in a recent poll.

Still, this is where Democrats are headed, pushed along by the growing ranks of socialists and progressives in the party.

"They're speaking to people as if their agenda is going to fix the cost of living crisis, but instead it will make it worse," Michel said.

Americans may be fed up with rising prices. But the runaway spending and heavy-handed government that democratic socialists are peddling would do far more harm than good.

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at ijacques@usatoday.com or on X: @Ingrid_Jacques