‘At the end of the day, it is going to be a symbol to the world and visitors about why this is important…’
Recent renderings of the proposed Obama Presidential Center in Chicago / IMAGE: Obama.org
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Take one virtue-signaling shoe company, add a pompous, grandstanding former president, and what do you have?
In the case of Nike, it’s a new basketball gym for Chicago‘s Barack Obama Presidential Center—already facing criticism over its audacious plans, which threaten to harm local residents by driving up costs, adding traffic and devouring a beloved urban greenspace.
As of January 2020, the plans for the sprawling $500+ million “campus” called for four buildings, including a museum and library, as well as a plaza.
“Obama has said it wouldn’t be his presidential center if there wasn’t a place to play some hoops,” quipped Jorge Casimiro, president of the Nike Foundation and community impact officer, according to BallerAlert.com.
The aim of the recreational space, Casimiro said, was to unify people, fulfilling a promise that Obama’s presidency never quite lived up to.
“It is about the transformative power of sport,” he said. “It is about coming together, about having a space to run around in and have fun and play, but also a space to have meetings.”
However, the latest development is apt to further infuriate environmentalists, who lost a bid last year to block the development from locating in Jackson Park, a public, waterfront refuge bordering Lake Michigan on the city’s South Side near the University of Chicago.
It wouldn’t be the first time Nike had courted controversy.
Much like the company’s most prominent pitchman, anthem-kneeling former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Nike hoped the association with Obama would enable the brand to further penetrate the coveted youth demographic.
“Both foundations believe people, especially young people, can change the world, particularly through sport,” said Casimiro.
The two have previously partnered on Michelle Obama’s 2013 Let’s Move! Active Schools initiative, to which Nike’s philanthropy arm gave $50 million.
Casimiro said that the president—although known to sneak cigarette breaks from the Oval Office—was a poignant figurehead, as iconic as the brand’s famed swoosh logo, for the higher virtues that Nike aspired to represent.
“At the end of the day, it is going to be a symbol to the world and visitors about why this is important,” he continued.
It is unclear whether the Obama Foundation had yet received the air rights for a massive, gold statue of the 44th president that would dwarf the nearby Willis Tower.
Obama has offered public assurances, though, that the center won’t be a tribute to himself according to People,
“There are a lot of presidential libraries and I think there is a tendency to think of this as a monument to the past, to think of it as something that is backwards-looking … And … a little bit of an ego trip,” he said.
“When Michelle and I started talking about the Presidential Center, we were really firm that what we want to do was create something for the future,” he added.
Sadly, he did not promise that if anyone likes the old greenspace, they can keep the old greenspace.
‘Employing this level of purposefully lazy gaslighting [is] not surprising, given that it comes from a political party whose strategy for victory relies so heavily on making voting more difficult…’
Members of the New Black Panther Party, armed with clubs, stand sentry outside a Philadelphia polling place during the 2008 election. Newly appointed Attorney General Eric Holder refused to prosecute them for election interference. / IMAGE: CNN via Youtube, courtesy Stephen Morse
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) One of corrupt Obama Attorney General Eric Holder‘s first major controversies was his refusal to prosecute members of the radical New Black Panthers over voter intimidation during the 2008 election.
Now, in his ongoing effort to undermine democratic institutions by any means necessary, Holder has flipped the script, claiming—contrary to evidence—that Republicans have undertaken to suppress minority voters.
Joining him in this effort is the human embodiment of sour grapes, failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, notorious for refusing to concede the race to her Republican opponent after court challenges failed to undo the outcome.
Holder and Abrams penned an op-ed, published Wednesday by USA Today, that sought to manipulate readers with a misleading narrative of voter-suppression.
“At the state level, Republicans have passed a raft of laws designed to block, deflect and deny access to the ballot,” the pair claimed, attacking common-sense legislation such as voter ID laws.
Many of those measures to preserve election-integrity—some approved by ballot referendum—were enacted in response to the wave of illegal immigration and rampant concerns of voter fraud during the Obama administration.
But after presenting their dubious evidence, the lying liberal activists then proceeded to dismiss the facts and counterarguments inconveniently working against them as a right-wing “gaslighting” conspiracy.
“Employing this level of purposefully lazy gaslighting of voters who were deprived of their constitutional rights is shocking but not surprising, given that it comes from a political party whose strategy for victory relies so heavily on making voting more difficult,” their op-ed claimed.
Masking Their Motives
To support their outlandish—albeit vague and nondescript—allegations of GOP-coordinated voter suppression, Holder and Abrams cited the Brennan Center, a left-wing think-tank headquartered at New York University.
The Supreme Court justice honored in the center’s name, William J. Brennan, was known for his outspoken liberal views and radical judicial activism after having gaslighted conservative President Dwight D. Eisenhower into placing him on the high court.
“Since 2010, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, 25 states have put heightened voting restrictions in place, almost entirely guided by Republican officials,” the op-ed claimed, falsely framing GOP-led voter-integrity safeguards as a bad thing.
Michael Bloomberg / IMAGE: CNN via Youtube
The Brennan Center, which laughably describes itself as “nonpartisan” in its mission statement, is staffed primarily by leftist NYU professors—an already unreliable lot, even if the university’s law school were not receiving millions in kickbacks from mega-donor and current Democratic candidate Michael Bloomberg.
Bloomberg generated controversy after he was revealed to have partnered with another of NYU’s supposed think-tanks, the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center, in order to embed environmental activists, whom he was paying, in the offices of state attorneys general, who then would pursue his personal climate-change agenda.
In its tax documents, the Brennan Center acknowledges that—far from the scholarly, academic facade that its nonprofit shell organization presents—it also manages a “strategic fund” with the goal “to attempt to influence public policy on issues of social justice.”
Likewise, Abrams currently is under investigation by a Georgia ethics commission after tax-sheltered nonprofit groups she founded—which ostensibly were engaged in nonpartisan voter registration—allegedly crossed the line into blatant get-out-the-vote efforts and political funding in violation of the state’s campaign finance laws.
A History of Lies
As if any more confirmation were needed that the op-ed’s claims were false and motivated by the Left’s political agenda, Holder also invoked his discredited work with the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
“These [voter suppression] efforts were aided by gerrymandering of state legislatures in 2011 that locked in their power and a disastrous Supreme Court decision … that gutted federal protections for minority voters,” the op-ed claimed, referencing two of the decisive rebukes Holder has received for his partisan efforts.
The GOP took control of many state legislatures in the 2010 midterm election as a result of voter outrage and backlash against the policies of newly elected President Barack Obama.
After that “shellacking”—one of the largest political turnovers in modern history—Democrats desperately went into damage-control mode, deflecting blame everywhere they could but on their own actions.
Regardless, Obama continued to lead the way to more legislative losses for Democrats at the state and congressional level throughout his divisive presidency.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder points an accusatory finger while campaigning for Georgia candidate Stacey Abrams. / IMAGE: 11 Alive via Youtube
During the 2016 Democratic National Convention, party power-brokers such as ethically challenged Clinton henchman Terry McAuliffe (then serving as governor of Virginia) and then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., devised the strategy for their newest scapegoat—to blame GOP gerrymandering—and secured the backing from their billionaire patrons to form the NDRC.
The Holder-led organization has targeted more than a dozen red states in the lead-up to the 2020 election, much as it did prior to the 2018 election, with “sue till blue” attempts to use Obama-appointed judges to overturn congressional maps lawfully drawn by GOP state legislatures.
Of course, the utter disingenuousness of the group’s central complaint is underscored by the free pass it gives to egregiously gerrymandered blue-states like California, which has only six Republican congressmen in a delegation of 53.
Shockingly, the NDRC has been largely successful in states like Virginia and North Carolina, despite a devastating Supreme Court decision that rejected federal oversight of “partisan gerrymandering” suits.
They have continued to press their case using specious claims of racism in a bid to maximize Democratic representation by flipping statehouses before the maps are redrawn in 2021.
While Holder loftily claims his mission is about fairness, justice and equity for all, the NDRC’s IRS application for nonprofit status tells a different story.
There, it lists the goal as wanting to “favorably position Democrats for the redistricting process.”
In other words, to force out the GOP majorities in state legislatures and replace them with leftist majorities that may gerrymander according to their own agenda.
If anyone tells you that @EricHolder is “fighting against gerrymandering” and for “fair maps,” just look at the form his organization filed with the IRS. The truth: their mission is to “FAVORABLY POSITION DEMOCRATS FOR THE REDISTRICTING PROCESS.” pic.twitter.com/1f6J2SnIlX
Beyond simply misleading the USA Today readers and would-be Democratic voters about their false intentions, Holder and Abrams go a step farther by blaming their fact-checking critics for the very offenses they knowingly committed.
“Recently, Republicans have offered a new argument to deny widespread voter suppression and misdirect the public about their actions,” the pair writes. “They claim that because high numbers of voters of color participated in the 2018 election, voter suppression could not possibly have occurred.”
The op-ed goes meta by accusing the GOP of “gaslighting” the public about its efforts to maintain election integrity, all while Holder and Abrams themselves rely on brazen distortions of fact to psychologically manipulate those in their left-wing cheering section.
“Put simply, an increase in participation does not negate the fact that challenges can also increase,” the op-ed continues. “Indeed, in elections in the past 20 years, the obstacles have grown more complex and harmful, and the injuries are real.”
Stacey Abrams / IMAGE: JFK Library via Youtube
This attack echoes a common trope deployed by Abrams, who—before, during and after her 2018 gubernatorial defeat—was crying foul with race-baiting claims of an unfair election to cast aspersions on the entire process.
She has since refused to concede the race, even though her opponent, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, won by a decisive margin.
“While more voters of color successfully navigated impediments to registration and ballot access in 2018, we cannot blithely ignore the tens of thousands of others silenced by purges [i.e., legally mandated updates to voter rolls], exact match schemes [requiring the information listed on a voter’s registration to match the information used to verify eligibility] and closed precincts [a money-saving measure in low-turnout areas where absentee ballots remain an option].”
As expected, Holder and Abrams must go out of their way to cherry-pick the facts necessary to levy their wild conspiracies.
That, alone, would be enough to elicit eye-rolls and the occasional gag reflex.
But given the ethical concerns and unscrupulous tactics of both Holder and Abrams—paired with Holder’s past history of violent rhetoric and the well-organized, well-funded legions of unhinged activists at their disposal—these claims must be approached with extreme caution and concern.
Holder—who last year went on record mocking patriotism by asking “Exactly when did you think America was great?”—has been busy amassing an army of angry social-justice warriors.
The NDRC merged last year with Obama’s campaign arm, Organizing for Action, giving it a vast network of resources and political infrastructure to tap into.
As many saw during the 2016 election, the lead-up to the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and recent efforts at climate activism, hell hath no fury like a brainwashed, left-wing radical scorned.
And already the warning signs of coordinated, tactical violence from the Left are beginning to rear, should the outcome of the 2020 presidential election not swing their way.
Objective: Organized Chaos
IMAGE: Wochit Politics via Youtube
Not only are Holder and Abrams paving the way for potential protests and violence from activists, but the Democrats’ efforts, under the guise of making elections more accessible, seem intent on sowing chaos.
Many on the Left are now fighting efforts to even clean up their voter rolls, as mandated under the National Voter Registration Act of the 1990s, in the hopes of creating more confusion at polling places, which they seem confident will work to their benefit.
Meanwhile, far-left states have begun issuing driver’s licenses to noncitizens that are indiscernible from those issued to citizens, and some have sought even to blur the line between citizen and noncitizen by allowing illegals to vote in local elections.
That provides for Democrats a never-ending pipeline of potential voters simply by offering free stuff at taxpayer expense and opening the borders to the ensuing flood of refugees whose countries—even socialist ones—do not offer free stuff.
Why the radical Left would so seek to erode democratic institutions has remained a mystery—with the only logical conclusion being that they hope to weaponize democracy against itself by undermining the electoral system entirely.
What replaces it will be determined by whose violent militias are best equipped to impose martial law.
Is it any wonder, then, that the Left also has been deeply engaged in recent gun-confiscation efforts in formerly red states like Colorado and Virginia, where rural populations might soon wish to rise up against the forces of socialism?
‘Robbing the Defense Department … to boost his own ego and for a wall he promised Mexico would pay to build is an insult to the sacrifices made by our service members…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Senate Democrats will try to force another vote on President Trump’s national emergency declaration in order to prevent him from reallocating $7.2 billion from military funds to the construction of a southern border wall.
It follows previous failed efforts, including a Senate resolution that Trump vetoed and activist lawsuits recently overruled by federal courts.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., joined by several other Democratic leaders, said in a statement that he “strongly opposes” Trump’s funds transfer, calling it a “continued cannibalization” of military accounts.
“We will continue to oppose the transfer of counterdrug funding for the wall, and will force yet another vote to terminate the President’s sham national emergency declaration and return these much-needed military construction funds back to our military,” Schumer said in a statement.
We will force yet another vote to terminate President Trump’s sham national emergency declaration and return these much-needed military construction funds back to our military. https://t.co/rjgg4gcV6g
After the Supreme Court ruled last year that Trump’s use of counterdrug funds was legal, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that Trump has the authority to transfer other discretionary military funds.
But Schumer has insisted that Trump’s actions are a “slap in the face” to the military.
“Bipartisan majorities in Congress have repeatedly rejected diverting money from critical military construction projects to build a single additional mile of border wall,” he said. “Robbing the Defense Department of these much-needed funds in order to boost his own ego and for a wall he promised Mexico would pay to build is an insult to the sacrifices made by our service members.”
If Schumer does force a vote on the emergency declaration, it will be the Democratic Party’s third attempt to block the declaration. Schumer needs a simple majority to rule against the declaration, but he would then need 67 votes to override Trump’s veto.
‘I like to say, “I wasn’t Dixie-Chicked, I was Dixie-d***ed”…’
Kathy Griffin
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Failed comedian Kathy Griffin admitted she had to “beg” for her most recent role on the Netflix show “You.”
Griffin told USA Today that she contacted the show’s producer, Greg Berlanti, directly, and asked if he’d allow her to make a guest appearance on the TV series and give her “five lines on something that would be seen by people that had nothing to do with Trump.”
Griffin’s career tanked after she posed in a picture holding Trump’s severed head. She apologized after she began to face backlash, but then took back her apology during an interview with “The View.”
“It was just a mask and ketchup. I wish I would have done a blow-up doll. I probably could have gotten away with a blow-up doll,” she said. “I like to say, ‘I wasn’t Dixie-Chicked, I was Dixie-d***ed.’ I lost right, left, middle — I lost everybody. F*** him.”
After she begged Berlanti for the role, Griffin said he called her back and agreed to work her into the show.
“[Berlanti] called me up, he was so nice he said—you know he’s a gay guy—he said ‘You know, Kathy, after all you’ve done for the community, all these decades, I’m happy to do this for you,’” she explained. “It was a day where I got to be on planet normal. It was such a fantastic gift.”
Griffin continues to insist that she doesn’t regret taking the photo, claiming the image actually helped kickstart her career overseas.
“While the picture has caused me a lot of duress [sic], it’s also made me global, everybody knows the crazy red-haired lady from the photo,” she said. “It has made me more fearless, and I really feel strongly that whoever comes at me, they have to understand I’ve prevailed against the president of the United States.”
Griffin has since continued to invite controversy through her political commentary, including a post on Twitter that encouraged the public doxxing of teenage defamation victim Nick Sandmann and other students from Covington Catholic High School.
Attorneys for Sandmann—who recently settled a lawsuit with CNN—have said they may also file suit against Griffin.
‘This is about the community and all of us coming together…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Vicki Foster, the retiring assistant chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg (NC) Police Department, is now speaking openly about the deadly violence that has spread across the city of Charlotte and political leadership’s inability to do anything about it.
“When I walked out the door, I felt this huge sense of relief,” she said, according to WSOC-TV.
The community needs to have some tough conversations about the rising homicide rate, Foster said, arguing that the “community is in crisis,” and that even after 28 years on the job, the level of crime Charlotte is now experiencing is unprecedented.
But the only time the community seems to want to talk about rising crime is when an officer is involved, Foster explained.
“We will have community forums and meetings at the churches, if a police officer kills someone,” Foster said on Monday. “You don’t see anyone having anything when it’s black-on-black crime. Nobody is saying a word.”
But Foster’s feedback was not received well.
“It’s almost a slap in the face when you’ve committed to try and help someone else be better,” said community leader Charles Robinson, who has spent several years working to end violence in one troubled neighborhood.
Will Adams, a member of anti-violence nonprofit Team Trublue, said he understands Foster’s concerns, “but to say that we’re doing nothing and that we don’t care? I know what we do, and I know what we’ve been doing, and I know what we’ll continue to do,” he said.
But Foster did not apologize for her remarks and said that she stands by them.
“Nobody’s talking about individual people,” she said. “I hate that people think this is an individualized story. This is about the community and all of us coming together.”
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) As many as 10 Republican senators are considering voting for the House’s war powers resolution, which would significantly limit President Donald Trump’s ability to take military action in Iran.
After a debriefing with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the officials had failed to provide adequate justification for the drone strike that killed Iranian general and terrorist Qassem Soleimani.
Lee slammed the Trump administration for trying to quash debate on the subject.
“I’m worried,” Lee told CNN’s Jake Tapper during an interview last week. “And as a United States senator and as a voter and citizen, I have learned not to simply take the federal government’s word at face value.”
The opposition reflected a rare show of solidarity between the libertarian opponents of government overreach and Democrats who are simply determined to oppose any action taken by the Trump administration.
Many on the Left pushed back indignantly after facing criticism that their rhetoric appeared to put them on the side of terrorists who sympathized with the murderous Islamic regime.
However, Lee cautioned that the cost of a potential war in the region wasn’t worth the gamble.
“I mean, look, we were lied to about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” he said. “We were lied to for a couple of decades about what was happening in Afghanistan. We have been lied to about a lot of things.”
Trump, too, has been critical of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan initiated by his Oval Office predecessors.
He had previously sought to withdraw the American military presence in the Middle East, but he argued that Soleimani’s plans to attack U.S. interests—including the embassy in Baghdad—represented an imminent threat.
In addition to Lee and Paul, eight more Senate Republicans are reviewing the legislation, according to Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who introduced the resolution in the Senate.
Among them are three of Trump’s most vocal GOP critics—Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah.
“There’s a good discussion going on,” Kaine told The Hill.
Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., has announced he would vote for a revised version of Kaine’s proposed bill, and Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, is also said to be considering it.
It “would not be unreasonable to say that there might be a group of 10 who should be considered potential [GOP] candidates to vote for it,” Lee said.
Frequent Trump defender Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., however, called the war powers resolution as a “blatantly unconstitutional” act.
“Congress has the power to declare war,” Graham told Fox News. “That doesn’t mean the commander in chief can’t use military force to protect the country without Congress.”
Graham pointed out that it was a bit disingenuous of some of Trump’s critics to raise their objections now after offering their blessings to military executive actions by the Bush and Obama administrations.
“We’ve had military engagements hundreds of times,” he said. “What the president did is he took out Soleimani, who was planning another attack against American forces in Iraq who were lawfully present. He has all the authority he needs to protect troops in the field.”
‘We are committed to keeping our borders secure, and we will finish the wall…’
IMAGE: Fox Business Network via Twitter
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) President Donald Trump is reallocating an additional $7.2 billion in funds from the Pentagon to the construction of a southern border wall.
This is five times more than the funding Congress authorized in the 2020 budget, according to The Washington Post.
But a federal appeals court ruled last week that this is completely legal, and allowed the Trump administration to move forward.
The Trump administration estimates that this additional funding will allow the government to build nearly 885 miles of new fencing by 2022, which is 300 miles more than what Trump originally promised voters.
More than 100 miles of new barriers have been constructed already, but construction continues to be disrupted by lawsuits filed against the administration.
The Supreme Court ruled last year that the Trump administration has the legal authority to reallocate military funds, and the 5th Circuit appeals court upheld this decision in a ruling last week, which overturned an El Paso court’s attempt to block the construction of the border wall.
“This is a victory for the rule of law,” White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement last week. “We are committed to keeping our borders secure, and we will finish the wall.”
Breaking News: The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just reversed a lower court decision & gave us the go ahead to build one of the largest sections of the desperately needed Southern Border Wall, Four Billion Dollars. Entire Wall is under construction or getting ready to start!
Chad Wolf, acting director of homeland security, promised voters last week that the administration had not fallen behind on the border wall’s construction.
“I can tell you that we remain confident that we are on track to 400, 450 miles that are either completed or under construction by the end of 2020,” he said at an event marking the completion of the 100th mile of barrier in Yuma, Ariz.
Now the Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to lift the ban and allow the administration to proceed.
Under the policy, an immigrant’s dependency on public programs, like Medicaid and food stamps, would be taken into consideration when evaluating the immigrant’s status.
This rule has been in place for years, but the new policy would expand the definition of who is considered a public charge.
Leftist activist groups took the Trump administration to court almost immediately after the new rule was introduced.
The New York-based appeals court ruled that the Trump administration does not have the authority to determine this kind of expansion and, therefore, blocked it.
The current injunction is one of several issued when the rule was rolled out, but other federal appeals courts have already lifted California’s regional injunction and another national injunction issued in Washington.
“Now, more than ever, it is critical that the public charge policy, which the lower courts called ‘repugnant to the American Dream of prosperity and opportunity through hard work and upward mobility,’ continues to be blocked,” claimed the litigants, who represent several activist groups, in a statement.
“Every day our injunction remains in effect, it protects millions of hard-working immigrant families across the nation,” said the statement.
Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has defended the public charge rule as “well within the law,” maintaining that it is the country’s sovereign right not to have to burden taxpayers with the social welfare of noncitizens seeking to cash in on American prosperity.
“Self-sufficiency is a central part of America’s proud heritage and we proudly stand behind that tradition,” he told CNN.
‘Red flag laws just allow for harassment of legal gun owners…’
IMAGE: 11 Alive via Youtube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) A Colorado judge denied a law enforcement request to confiscate a man’s guns—the first confiscation denial since the state’s red-flag laws went into effect on Jan. 1.
Law enforcement asked the judge to grant permission to confiscate a man’s guns after a Limon, Colorado, woman told the police that she was being physically abused by her husband.
The man had threatened her with a handgun, according to a police report.
The Lincoln County judge denied the request, but the reasons for the denial have not been made public.
Lincoln County is, however, considered a 2nd Amendment sanctuary, which means that its residents voted not to honor the state’s red-flag laws.
At least four “extreme risk protection” orders have been filed in courts across the state, according to CBS Denver, and three of them have been approved.
When a judge approves the order, a court hearing is immediately scheduled to determine if the person’s guns should be held for up to 364 days.
But most gun owners oppose the new law.
“Red flag laws just allow for harassment of legal gun owners,” said Colorado resident Jak Gruenberg, adding that the judge’s denial will help “determine exactly where the lines are” and what the government can do to prevent citizens from exercising their 2nd Amendment rights.
Republicans in Oklahoma and Kansas have proposed measures that would prevent their state legislatures from taking up similar red flag laws.
The proposals would also prohibit local city and county governments from enacting such laws, and they would make it a felony for someone to help enforce a gun-confiscation order.
“There’s numerous violations of the Bill of Rights taking place by these red flags laws,” Oklahoma state Sen. Nathan Dahm said.
‘It is remarkable how little attention such a huge change has gotten…’
Bernie Sanders / IMAGE: The Young Turks via Youtube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) If socialist-leaning Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders were elected president, he would increase the cost and size of government to a level unseen since World War II, according to a CNN analysis.
Sanders’s government spending would surpass Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, and it would increase the size of government far more than any modern Republican has sought to cut it.
“On the spending side … this is far more radical than all previous presidencies, on either the right or the left,” said Larry Summers, the former chief White House economic adviser for the Obama administration.
“The Sanders spending increase is roughly 2.5 times the size of the New Deal and the estimated fiscal impact of George McGovern’s campaign proposals,” Summers continued, referencing the progressive 1972 candidate who ran against Richard Nixon.
“This is six times as large of a growth of government than any of the Ronald Reagan dismemberments,” he added. “We are in a kind of new era of radical proposal.”
Few Democratic candidates have asked Sanders how he plans to get away with this. “It is remarkable how little attention such a huge change has gotten,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
“We are literally talking about increases in government spending that would double the size of government as a share of gross domestic product,” she said.
Sanders hasn’t released exact cost projections for his many programs, but he’s estimated that the likely cost of Medicare for All, for example, would be around $30 trillion over the next decade. Add that to the Green New Deal and his plan to cancel all student loan debt, and total federal spending would be nearly $60 trillion or more.
Even Democratic voters should be turned off by these numbers, said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic group.
“I think if the price tag for the Sanders agenda was [better] known … voters would blanch—even Democratic primary voters would blanch,” Kessler said.
“The truth of the matter is, in primary elections both in 2016 and so far in this one, he’s allowed to skate,” Kessler continued. “He gets graded on a curve. But if he were the nominee, the curve is over. The Republicans will spend a billion dollars picking apart every one of his plans.”
