Bill Bennett: Bill Gates is right, Elizabeth Warren's 'Medicare-for-all' plan is 'crazy'
Sen. Elizabeth Warren's, "Medicare-for-all" plan is crazy, former Secretary of Education Dr. Bill Bennett said Thursday, arguing the middle class will see big tax increases if the 2020 Democratic front-runner's plans are ever enacted.
Speaking with reporters in Iowa this week, the Massachusetts senator claimed that billionaires alone could potentially fund her $52 trillion "Medicare-for-all" proposal.
“It doesn’t raise taxes on anybody but billionaires,” Warren said. “And you know what? The billionaires can afford it, and I don’t call them middle class.”
WARREN UNDER FIRE ON 'MEDICARE-FOR-ALL' AS SHE NOW CLAIMS BILLIONAIRES ALONE CAN FUND IT
In an interview with The New York Times on Wednesday, Microsoft founder Bill Gates – who has a net worth over $100 billion – said he found Warren's pitch to be too much. The plan would hit billionaires, banks and corporations the hardest. Warren has promised her constituents that the middle class will not be hit with a tax hike.
"I've, uh, paid over $10 billion in taxes. I've paid more than anyone in taxes (audience laughs). I'm glad to have — if I had to pay $20 billion, it's fine. But when you say I should pay $100 billion, OK, then I'm starting to do a little math about what I have leftover," he said.
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Appearing on "America's Newsroom" with host Sandra Smith, Bennett said Gates was right.
"I don't weep for Bill Gates and this tax bill. He's probably got plenty to spare no matter what. But, I do weep for the middle class. This was a crazy thing that Elizabeth Warren did," said the Fox News contributor.
"It's not only crazy as policy," he added. "But it is really also, I think, going to hurt her and the whole Democrat Party."
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Bennett added that Warren's plan has drawn harsh criticism from both sides of the aisle.
"A friend of mine says by laying out the details of her proposal for 'Medicare-for-all' and the price tag here, that she has written the longest political suicide note in history. And, that was a Democrat friend who said that," he told Smith.
"This will weigh her down; it will weigh down the Democrat Party. When Bill Gates starts objecting, you have a problem," he concluded.
