Democratic socialists have lots of ideas, but how are we supposed to pay for them?
By: Ted Jenkin (Fox News)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
July 9, 2026 -- As a certified financial planner, I've spent more than three decades asking people one simple question before they make a major financial decision.
"How are you going to pay for it?"
It's a question every bank asks before approving a loan. It's a question every family should ask before buying a home. And it's the question every voter should ask as democratic socialism gains momentum across America. You can vote for someone as president of student council who promises free lunch, no school on Fridays, and unlimited recess, but will those policies actually be put into place, and will they be successful?
Because every promise has a price tag.
Over the past few weeks, Democratic Socialist candidates have captured national attention with proposals that include government-funded childcare, free public transit, city-owned grocery stores, tuition-free college, universal healthcare, rent freezes, expanded public housing and significantly higher taxes on wealthy Americans.
Many of these ideas sound compassionate. Some may even solve real problems.
But good intentions have never balanced a budget, and we are woefully behind on that already.
The United States is already carrying nearly $40 trillion in national debt. We continue to run trillion-dollar annual deficits. Interest on that debt is now one of the fastest-growing expenses in the federal budget, meaning taxpayers are spending hundreds of billions of dollars every year simply paying interest on yesterday's borrowing while not building roads, improving schools or strengthening our military.
Now we're being told the answer is ... more spending?
Let's look at what happens when government promises more than it can sustainably fund.
In New York City, progressive leaders have proposed policies ranging from city-owned grocery stores and free buses to major expansions of public housing and government-funded childcare. In Seattle, policymakers have pursued higher business taxes, expanded tenant protections and broader public spending to address housing affordability and inequality.
Supporters believe these policies make life more affordable.
Critics argue they increase long-term financial obligations, discourage business investment and create budget pressures that future taxpayers must absorb. Reasonable people can disagree on which side is right, but no one can disagree with one basic principle.
Eventually, the bill comes due.
Here's what worries me most. America became the most prosperous nation in history because we rewarded people who created value. Entrepreneurs risked their savings to build companies. Small business owners hired employees before they knew if customers would show up. Investors funded ideas that changed the world. Workers believed that hard work and personal responsibility could improve their lives. That system wasn't perfect.
But it created more opportunity, more innovation and more wealth than any economic model in history.
When government continually expands its role, raises taxes and promises more benefits without clearly explaining how they'll be funded, we should ask whether we're creating more opportunity or simply redistributing what others have already created and stunting future generations to want to build and innovate.
As a financial advisor, I never tell clients they can spend money they don't have. That's just common sense. I don't tell them debt doesn't matter. I don't tell them someone else will eventually pay their bills. Washington shouldn't either.
If politicians want to propose new programs, great. Show us the numbers. Show us how they'll be funded over the next decade and not just next year's election cycle. Show us what gets cut if revenues don't materialize. Show us how much additional debt we're willing to leave our children.
That's not a Republican question.
That's not a Democratic question.
That's an American question.
Compassion and fiscal responsibility are not opposites. In fact, lasting compassion depends on sound finances. Families know it. Businesses know it. And you know it. The federal government should know it too. America doesn't have a shortage of good ideas. It has a shortage of leaders willing to admit that every promise comes with a price tag.
Before we embrace bigger government, let's demand something remarkably simple to understand.
Don't just tell us what you're going to give us.
Tell us who's going to pay for it. How's that for a democratic idea?
Ted Jenkin is President of Exit Stage Left Advisors and Host of The Red, White & Green Show.
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Unsustainable Democratic Socialist promises for an expanded safety net will not deliver safety. By focusing on handouts rather than economic expansion and democratization the Democratic Socialists are creating a doom-loop that no amount of taxation can fix.
I'm a capitalist and believe where the free market can provide a needed service, it should be the one to fill it. However, one of the needs in our society is to keep Americans alive and well as long as we can, even when the elderly can no longer take care of themselves, have no family and have no money. If you're a pure capitalist, you recognize there is no profit in keeping that elderly American alive. Financially, it costs a lot of money to take care of people past a certain age, that's just a fact.
So, do we, as a society, just say to hell with the elderly who can't afford health insurance or can't afford basic needs to stay alive? Of course not, that's why we have Medicare which is certainly not a 'for-profit- venture and made a compromise with "Social Security" where we all pitch in over our lifetimes and then get just enough to stay alive if we didn't invest better or work harder while we could.
Is it unsustainable? Of course not, all it would take is cutting some of the subsidies to corporations to fund our current social programs and many more without seeing our income taxes rise at all.
Don't get me wrong, many of the asks of these DSA's are nothing more that fantasy and the majority of Democrats are never going to support things like Universal healthcare and free childcare. While I don't mind the idea of universal health care, the implementation with the current system we have and all the private ownership already in the medical industry just makes that a non-starter. I do think they should increase Medicare eligibility and agree to pay more for Medicare services so more private practices will accept Medicare patients, but universal health care just isn't going to happen. The ACA was the best would could hope for which is a compromise with private insurers but really just a way to force people into the insurance pool which spreads the risk and increases participation and premium profit.
Its often enlightening to consider the author. Ted Jenkin is an opinion writer for Fox News whose specialty seems to be fluffing up the Elon Musks of the world. You've never had it so good.
Conservatives have been trying to minimize the social safety net as far back as I can remember. Its always a struggle to keep it healthy.
Don't move the goalposts and fearmonger about Social Security and Medicare. That's not what Democratic Socialists are promising. Universal income, housing subsidies, food security, public supported childcare, expansion of public education, etc. etc. have nothing to do with SoSec, Medicare, or ACA.
Right now government (at all levels) serve as gatekeepers on the economy. Over 53% of GDP passes through government each year. Government is extracting money from the economy in more ways than taxes. That is not a capitalist economy.
Here is a summary of the government footprint on the economy:
Taxes, Fees, & Direct Revenues: $12.203 Trillion
Debt Servicing (Coupon Extraction): $1.000 Trillion
Auto & Health Insurance Mandates: $1.700 Trillion
Other Off-Budget Regulatory/Compliance Costs: ~$1.800 Trillion
That adds up to $16.7 trillion or ~53% of GDP. Even if government returns that money to the economy through safety net spending, it is not capitalism.
Those DSA promises are fantasy simply because there is no effort to achieve a sustainable safety net. Sustainability will require policy changes that decentralize and democratize the economy. Our current monetary policy to create a financialized economy cannot create the tangible wealth that would be needed to support an expanded safety net. Taxing corporations won't cut it because that would be inflationary. Taxing the rich won't generate the $Trillions of revenue that would be required.
meaning what?
Meaning local investing for local business. State stock markets to support small business. The economy would be more resilient (and sustainable) with ten $100 million companies than with one $1 billion company.
You may be forgetting about economies of scale in the business environment these days. Small start-ups have almost no chance of competing with the established giants.
What giants? Amazon is building warehouses, not factories. Tesla is a niche manufacturer just as is Harley Davidson. Where do you think Walmart obtains the goods for its shelfs? Even Chinese suppliers are typically small and medium sized manufacturers.
Where do double-wide factory built homes come from? Where do building materials (lumber, cement, drywall, paint) come from? Did the US import the charcoal used for the July 4th BBQs? There are plenty of opportunities for small and medium sized businesses that would be of no interest to an 'economy of scale' giant corporation.
Saying Socialist over and over again shouldn't necessarily negate any well thought out goals or ideas.
They obviously when out of their way to not name themselves :"The More of the Same Stupid Shit (year in and year out) Party". MoSSSP
Golden Oval Office
Cage fight on the south lawn which destroyed the grasses and removed trees.
Now a helipad because the Leader wants newer more expensive Sikorsky helicopters that have down facing exhaust which would burn the grass.
He wants to put 40 plus Walnut trees somewhere around the White House and take over a local golf course to beautify it to his standards
He's doing something to the Ionic columns that probably did not need anything.
The Reflecting pool.....fiasco.
The East Wing / Ballroom...
The proposed Arch, damn the building codes...
He put his name on the Kennedy Center and that ended up being removed but the tarps and scaffolding remain because the judge didn't spell out his expectations...
A 50% increase in the military budget including a Battleship named after Trump, $20B.
This is just scratching the surface of the spending madness that has to stop.
It doesn't matter which party does it, it all wrong fiscally but we should start with the person in the WH Ballroom.
Why aren't we as good as these countries that offer free healthcare and education?
For anybody who thinks that America isn't a socialist country. Have you ever heard of the farm bill?
Some broad concepts: Lower costs. Stop dropping expensive bombs indiscriminately. Stop trying to save billionaires from the tax man.
Pretty obvious, isn't it? Considering that the wealth gap is now worse than it was in the Gilded Age, tax the rich more, on a progressive scale of course.
Speaking of the Gilded Age, remember how it drove a rise of socialism and the worker rights movement? The situation may be different today (public relief programs make it a little less painful), but still, look for another rise if things keep getting worse.
How much revenue would that generate? $100 billion? $200 billion? Would 'taxing the rich' generate enough revenue to pay the $1 trillion to service the national debt?
Today's economy is structurally different than the Gilded Age. The late 19th century economy was transitioning to heavy industry, producing tangible wealth. The robber barons became wealthy by hiring workers to produce raw materials and factory goods. The financial aspects of the economy were constrained by a metal reserve that did not allow printing enormous amounts of fiat currency. The financial sector was decentralized relying more on local subscriptions, customer & employee ownership of stock, and several regional stock markets. Wall Street did not hold a monopoly position for providing investor capital.
Today's disparities are caused as much by debasing our currency as by concentrating capital. We've allowed Wall Street to become a monopoly. We've allowed the rich to print their own money through fractional banking and a floating currency. We've allowed government to become a gatekeeper on the economy where 53% of GDP must pass through governmental institutional toll booths.
It's early days for New York, but so far the programs being implemented aren't breaking the bank.
The luxury tax on multiple residences for the wealthy did not cause an exodus of the wealthy. New York has seen an increase of high end property sales and the wealthy folks did not stop their luxury real estate investments because of the tax.
There are sound proposals to fund many programs and the solutions to pay for them are not "pie in the sky" imaginations.
Republicans bash anything positive and anything that allows them to continue to spread negative doom and gloom because they exist on exploiting fear as a means for power.
The real right wing fear is that something works that they can't take credit for.
Since Bush it's hard to count the number of Republicans who vote AGAINST a bill that helps Americans, then turn around and go to a ribbon cutting in their district knowing they voted against the people in their state and lie while taking credit for a Democrat bill that solved something.
They spread lies about policy and are scared because they cannot take credit for what these young politicians are solving for the people.
Are we all so blind that we are going to fight over the name of a political party rather than applaud working solutions?
Things are such a mess and no, it wasn't all Biden.
But Americans are sick of getting nothing while gold plated hardware, marble ballrooms, extravagant parties and sports held on taxpayer grounds, and the list of waste, fraud and abuse happening before our very eyes is just disgusting.
Are both Democrats and Republicans sticking their heads in the sand while all this real waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars goes on while shouting "squirrel" at a third party duly elected by the voters?
If a third party can get it done, the real shame is seeing that it can be done, but Republicans and Democrats are quaking because they can't play 2 party battle-bots now that a new kid entered the game.