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Elizabeth Warren has a colossal $30 trillion progressive agenda. Here's a breakdown of how she plans to pay for it.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is waging a presidential campaign that ultimately seeks to tilt the economic levers of power away from large corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

Elizabeth Warren rally
  • To that end, she has proposed a raft of sweeping progressive plans that would restructure the American economy and redistribute its riches to curb wealth inequality.
  • The total price tag of her agenda, according to The New York Times , stands at around $30.5 trillion over a decade.
  • The federal government is projected to spend $58 trillion over the next decade and Warren's plans would increase that total by half if she became the nation's 47th president.
  • Here is a breakdown of her spending so far, including her plan to finance Medicare for All plan.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren is waging a presidential campaign that ultimately seeks to tilt the economic levers of power away from large corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

To that end, she has proposed a raft of sweeping progressive plans that would restructure the American economy and redistribute its riches to curb wealth inequality. The scale rivals President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society over a half-century ago, which led to the creation of Medicare and Medicaid.

The total price tag of her agenda, according to The New York Times , stands at around $30.5 trillion over a decade. The federal government is projected to spend $58 trillion in the same period and Warren's plans would increase that total by half if she became the nation's 47th president. Many of them would certainly face resistance from Republicans in Congress.

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Here is a breakdown of her spending as noted by The Times:

  • Medicare for All : $20.5 trillion, covered by a blend of funding sources that include rerouted spending and ramped-up taxes.
  • Increasing Social Security benefits : $3.1 trillion, covered by raising investment and payroll taxes on affluent workers.
  • Combating climate change, clean energy initiatives: $3 trillion, paid for by new corporate taxes and rolling back the 2017 Republican tax cuts.
  • Universal childcare, student debt cancellation, improving public schools: $2.9 trillion, financed by wealth tax.
  • Housing: $500 billion, financed by widening the estate tax.
  • Boosting small businesses, addressing opioid crisis, expanding rural broadband: $400 billion, paid for by abolishing a tax benefit for inherited assets.

Warren has proposed a wealth tax on the richest Americans to pay for her plans. The tax would impose a 2% tax on households with net worths above $50 million and levy a 6% rate on fortunes over $1 billion annually.

The Warren campaign estimated it would generate $2.75 trillion in revenue over a decade, though that figure has been debated among economists.

CNN recently reported that if she were elected president, Warren would initially seek to sign into law an anti-corruption bill, another getting rid of the filibuster and then her wealth tax.

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Warren's Medicare for All program would expand health insurance to every person in the United States, virtually eliminating the private insurance sector in the process. And it would scrap deductibles, co-pays, and out-of-pocket spending.

Sanders and Warren have both championed the plan, arguing it would drastically lower the healthcare spending of middle-class families in the long run.

Warren outlined her $20.5 trillion spending plan over a decade, according to the Wall Street Journal :

  • $8.8 trillion in a new employer tax that redirects their healthcare spending onto the federal budget.
  • $2.9 trillion in additional taxes on corporations.
  • $2.3 trillion from stepped-up enforcement of tax laws.
  • $2 trillion in additional capital-gains taxes.
  • $1.4 trillion in more revenue as the result of higher take-home pay for workers.
  • $1.9 trillion from taxing financial firms and ramped-up wealth tax targeting assets of the super-rich.
  • $800 billion in Pentagon spending cuts.
  • $400 billion in additional tax money from overhauling immigration laws.
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Some of Warren's ambitious revenue and spending targets in her Medicare for All plan has drawn criticism from experts. Conservative economist Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute called it "fairy dust" and assailed much of it as wishful thinking.

Others said the plan's goals were within the range of the possible. "I think they're achievable and, for those who are critical, please show me yours," Don Berwick, the former administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Obama, told the Times.

See Also:

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SEE ALSO: How Elizabeth Warren rose from a nearly broke Midwestern upbringing to a top Democratic presidential candidate and Wall Street's worst enemy

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