by WorldTribune Staff, September 9, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
August is over and the Midterm elections are upon us with warnings, opposition research and more promises than stars in the sky.
Democrats who are running or have been elected under the banner of socialism are promising a host of cradle-to-grave freebies:
__ Free healthcare.
__ Free childcare.
__ Free preschool.
__ Free college.
__ Free transportation.
__ Housing for all.
__ Months of paid family and sick leave?
The price tag for those freebies?
That could run up to $211 trillion over 10 years, Adam N. Michel, director of tax policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told The Washington Times.
Yearly global GDP, the annual economic output of the entire planet, sits at roughly $105 to $110 trillion.
Taxing billionaires is the usual starting point for socialists. In the United States, the total collective net worth of all billionaires is approximately $5.8 trillion. Confiscating 100% of their wealth would only fund about 2.7% of a $211 trillion goal.
“There is no universe in which you could implement the [Democratic Socialists of America] agenda and not raise taxes by a massive amount on most Americans,” Michel said.
In 2026, Democrat primary voters who are “oblivious to the cost, are gravitating toward socialist candidates in races across the country who are promising a host of cradle-to-grave freebies,” Susan Ferrechio wrote in an Aug. 24 analysis for The Washington Times.
In Florida, Democrat voters last month the U.S. Senate special election primary picked a socialist candidate for the November ballot. That would be state Rep. Angie Nixon. Her promises: free healthcare, free childcare, free paid family and sick leave, a national rent freeze, a moratorium on evictions and a universal jobs program with inflation-adjusted wages.
The programs would be funded, she said, by taxing billionaires, slashing military spending and ending “big money” funding of political races.
For even a few of those dreams to become reality, the cost would far exceed revenue from taxing the rich and corporations, economic analysts say.
Even if the federal government confiscated every dollar of high-end wealth and corporate profits, it would cover only a small fraction of those costs, Michel told The Times.
The numbers showed that a universal healthcare program or “Medicare for All,” which would provide healthcare for everyone without paying premiums or co-pays, would cost $40 trillion to $75 trillion over the next decade.
Despite the promises of Democratic candidates, universal healthcare would hardly be free.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CFRB) said policymakers would likely fund the massive costs with an array of new taxes that could include a 32% payroll tax, a 25% income surtax, a 42% value-added tax, a $7,500 per capita mandatory public premium, doubling all income tax rates and reducing non-health spending by 80%.
“Taxes on high earners and corporations alone could not finance Medicare for All,” the CRFB said.
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat Party’s nominee in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race, is among the socialists advocating for free childcare and preschool, tuition-free college, and even free graduate school.
“Sadly, too few have access to our colleges and universities,” El-Sayed, who holds a medical degree but has never held a medical license, stated on his campaign website’s “priorities” page. “That’s why I believe that every student deserves a debt-free and tuition-free pathway toward the skills they need to thrive, be that a two-year apprenticeship or a four-year college education and beyond.”
The Education Data Initiative, which collects data about the U.S. education system, projected that providing U.S. students with a completely free college education would cost up to $75 billion in the first year and $800 billion over 11 years.
Ferrechio noted that “universal pre-kindergarten would not be cheap, either.”
The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model projected in 2022 that nationwide universal preschool education for 3- and 4-year-olds would cost $351 billion over the following decade. The model calculated that the program would raise the debt, but that it would be offset by “improved productivity from additional education and additional caregiving entering the labor market.”
In New York City, socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised “fast and free” bus service. City officials say such a program would cost more than $1 billion annually.
A “green” infrastructure and transportation bill introduced in 2021 by Sen. Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who pitches socialist policies, called for spending $1 trillion annually from 2022 through 2031.
Housing for All legislation, introduced in 2020 by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, called for a $2.5 trillion, 10-year plan to build more housing.
Janeese Lewis George, the democratic socialist who won the D.C. Democrat mayoral primary in June and is heavily favored in the District’s November general election, said she plans to launch a “Housing for All” program that would expand rent control, build 72,000 public and private housing units over five years, and provide money for down payments and foreclosure prevention. Lewis George said she would tap federal funding and take billions of dollars from the city’s pension funds to pay for the program.
Michel estimated the 10-year cost of a nationwide Housing for All program, including rent payments and mortgage interest, would top $16 trillion.
Candidates running under the DSA banner want to force companies to provide generous paid sick leave, parental leave and vacation.
Claire Valdez, the Democratic nominee for New York’s 7th Congressional District and “proud democratic socialist,” said she would push for a four-day, 32-hour workweek without a change in pay, and guaranteed universal paid family leave of “at least” three months. Her paid leave agenda includes five days of bereavement leave, up to 20 days of paid vacation and paid sick leave “as needed.”
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated, according to the bill’s sponsors, that the Family Act, which was reintroduced in September by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Connecticut Democrat, would cost nearly $600 billion over 10 years. It would impose a 0.4% federal payroll tax, paid by workers and their employers, to cover the cost of up to 12 weeks of paid leave.
“The measure is backed by nearly every House and Senate Democrat and is likely to land atop the agenda next year if the party wins the majority in Congress in November,” Ferrechio noted.
