Bernie Sanders promises to tax and target corporations, but avoids the details

Bernie Sanders opened the debate Thursday with a rare political admission: He would raise taxes on middle-class Americans.

The honest answer came with a complicated context likely to be ignored by rivals: The tax increase would be offset by the decline in healthcare costs under the passage of one of Sanders’ signature plans — a single payer healthcare system called “Medicare for All,” and buoyed by policies intended to close the wealth gap in the country.

“People with Medicare for All will have no premiums, no deductibles, no co-payments,’’ said the Vermont senator, who has emphasized that most of his plans would be financed by higher taxes on the rich.. “Yes, they [the middle class] will pay more in taxes but less in healthcare for what they get.”

Sanders’ move into the politically precarious tax waters also came with a victory of sorts. His plan became the focal point of his Democratic rivals for president for nearly one-fourth of the two-hour debate.

For nearly 30 minutes, the 10 Democratic candidates discussed not whether they would reform healthcare and reverse President Donald Trump’s rollback in Obamacare, but how they would do it.

Sanders’ progressive agenda has helped to move the Democratic Party to the left in the past three years after he lost the primary in 2016 to Hillary Clinton. The party has also embraced his call for a $15 minimum wage and his attempt to hold corporations accountable.

“How come for the last 40 years wages have been stagnant?’’ Sanders asked at the close of the debate. “How come we have the highest rate of childhood poverty? How come 45 million people still have student debt? How come three people make more than half of America?

“Here is the answer: Nothing will change unless we have the guts to take on Wall Street, the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the military-industrial complex and the fossil fuel industry.”

But despite efforts by the debate moderators to press Sanders for specifics, he kept his answers broad.

NBC host Lester Holt asked Sanders to explain how he would implement his single-payer healthcare plan at a national level when individual states — from Colorado to Massachusetts — have been unable to make similar measures work on a state level. Sanders did not answer.

Holt pressed again.

“We will do it the way big change has always taken place, whether it’s the labor movement, the women’s movement or the civil rights movement,’’ Sanders replied, raising his voice in his Brooklyn accent.

“We’ll have Medicare for All when tens of millions of people are prepared to stand up and tell the insurance companies and the drug companies that their day is gone, that healthcare is a human right — not something to make huge profits off of.”

Sanders, 77, the longest serving independent in the Senate who calls himself a “democratic socialist,’’ stood at the center of the stage because he is at the top of the polls, second only to former Vice President Joe Biden.

“We need a party that is diverse, but we need a party that has the guts to stand up to the special interests who have so much power over the economic and political life of this country,’’ he said.

But in Florida, home to hundreds of thousands of exiles from Latin American countries once led by dictators and communist regimes, Republican leaders are aggressively using healthcare and the Democrats’ other progressive proposals as a weapon and a wedge to stir up emotions, labeling all Democrats as “socialists.”

Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, held a business roundtable near Miami on Thursday to discuss the issue of socialism.

Many of the business people are “saying the things we’re hearing from the Democrat Party are frightening. They’re reminiscent of what we heard in our home countries before they became places that we had to flee,’’ she said.

“When you have a total government takeover of your healthcare or your education, that’s socialism. When the government is making decisions as to your secondary education, your curriculum, I mean, what are they going to say when they’re paying for your college?”

Across the street from the debate site, the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, on the corner of Biscayne Boulevard and Northeast 13th Street, a giant sign was hoisted between the palm trees: “Miami: No socialismo, No comunismo, solos capitalista,’’ it read.

Indeed, the candidates have proposed a host of ideas designed to shrink the wealth and opportunity gap.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who was on the debate stage on Wednesday, has called for universal child care. California Sen. Kamala Harris has proposed a plan to build on the earned-income tax credit and create a new monthly cash payment for most middle-class households. And New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has a plan that aims at making housing more affordable.

NBC host Savannah Guthrie asked Sanders what he says to critics who say that by “nominating a socialist we will reelect Donald Trump.”

Sanders did not address the socialist label but cited recent polls that showed he was “10 points ahead of Donald Trump.”

“Because the American people understand that Trump is a phony, that Trump is a pathological liar and a racist and he lied to the American people during his campaign,’’ Sanders said. “He said he would stand up for working families. Well, you’re not standing up for working families when you try to throw 80 million people off of healthcare that they have.”

The issue underscores the civil and ideological divide emerging within the Democratic Party, with Sanders left and Biden in the center. Despite that, Sanders did not direct his fire at Biden Thursday, but instead directed his jabs at Trump.

When asked how he would address the issue of undocumented immigrant children being held in privately run shelters on his first day as president, he answered: “On Day One, we take out our executive order pen and we rescind every damn thing that Trump has done.”

But he added that it is also important to look at the root causes of the “hemispheric” crisis and would invite representatives from Latin American countries to come to the U.S. and help to come up with a sustainable solution.

Miami Herald reporter Elizabeth Koh contributed to this report.

Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at meklas@miamiherald.com

This story was originally published June 27, 2019 at 11:56 PM with the headline "Bernie Sanders promises to tax and target corporations, but avoids the details."