Spending Plans of the Presidential Candidates

But don't worry.  Only the rich will be taxed to pay for all of these promises.  The socialists of the Democratic Socialist Party, who do not actually believe in democracy, have assured us that very few of us will be taxed to pay for all the goodies a much multiplied bureaucracy of swamp creatures and the special interests their handouts will spawn will provide.  We will just tax the producers of wealth in America and hand their money over to politicians and bureaucrats and we will be well taken care of.  No worries.

Reality: You will have to work mighty hard to become one of the special interest factions able to soak up the money unless you want to join the vast majority of Americans in a lower standard of life.  Forget about voluntary associations and acts of cooperation in a free society.  Forget about choosing your own values and dreams.  Forget about managing your own life in accordance with your self-chosen values.

Stop working hard -- if you do, everyone else will just take all you produce, stealing the very hours of your life.  Don't be a slave to government -- go fishing or watch endless hours of TV, or stare at your cell phone all day.  This is the good life according to the many socialists among us.  Any purpose but the pursuit of power over others is pointless.  Is it any wonder the majority of the people will turn to alcohol and opiates in their ideal society, while the ambitious will become brutal savages in the pursuit of the power to deny everyone else their voluntary associations and acts of cooperation?

Socialism only appeals to the unbelievably ignorant, the insane, and the most brutish persons of a society.

Update on 6 March 2020:

Only Sanders and Biden remain of the Democratic Party significant contenders of the spending plans plot above.  Buttigieg, Bloomberg, Steyer, and Klobuchar only wanted federal spending over 10 years of $68 trillion or less.  That was not enough for the modern Democratic Party.  They all failed to acquire enough votes from their highly socialist party adherents.  Biden promises to spend $75.6 trillion over the next 10 years and that might be enough to satisfy enough party members for him to secure the party nomination with the generous help of the party political hack delegates who do not need to get votes.  Sanders wants an unbelievable $139.5 trillion in spending over 10 years.

Sanders wants to spend enough to collapse the federal government.  This is the real revolution he has been advocating.  Collapse the federal government and in the ensuing chaos, create a communist government to take its place.  His passion has always been for the kind of socialism that makes everyone equally poor.  He has never had any use for people who produce the goods and services of the private market.  His is a real passion for socialism and he has no real interest even in stealing from the private sector in an ongoing manner.  No, he only wants to steal all its wealth once.  Once and done.

Biden and the political establishment of the Democratic Party do not want to collapse the government.  They do not want to entirely kill the wealth generating private sector.  No, they are parasites and they have just enough self-interest not to kill their host.  They need the wealth-generating private sector to generate the wealth they will steal and the money they will use to acquire more power over the American people.  These people include most of the media, almost all of academia and the bureaucrats, almost all the lobbyists, and some environmentalists and labor leaders.  They want to maximize the amount of wealth they can steal, which means they have to allow wealth to be generated still.  If they understood economics better, they would allow more wealth to be generated than they will allow and they would actually get away with stealing more, though at a lower percentage.  However, these are also envious people who depend heavily upon getting the votes of envious people, so they have to compromise by maximizing some combination of envy + stolen wealth.