Indeed, as the
Wall Street Journal editorial board
wryly explains, you could confiscate the entire net worth of all US billionaires and still not raise enough money to fund Sanders’ plans.
“There are 724 [billionaires] in the U.S., according to the 2021 Forbes billionaires list, released in April,” the
Journal reports. “At that point their collective net worth was $4.4 trillion, although that figure has presumably since risen along with the stock market.”
But when accounting for future renewals, the true cost of Sanders’ schemes, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, is
closer to $5.5 trillion—at least a trillion more than could be raised from billionaires. (And that’s assuming that taking their entire net worth is on the table; it most certainly is not).
“If Mr. Sanders were to confiscate every asset of every American billionaire— Jeff Bezos’s rockets; Elon Musk’s bitcoin; Larry Ellison’s boats; Oprah Winfrey’s houses; Ted Turner’s ranches; Jay-Z’s car collection; even the starched shirt off the back of poor Larry Fink, who tied for last place on the Forbes list, at $1 billion—it still wouldn’t cover the cost of Democrats’ next two legislative plans,” the
Journal concludes.