The Democratic Socialists of America are pushing for a federal government spending spree on everything from reparations to the Green New Deal that could top $200 trillion over the next decade, a shocking new report reveals.
The proposals from the far-left faction, which has enjoyed multiple high-profile election victories in the last year from Congress to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, would result in government spending surging to 57% of GDP, according to the lower-bound estimate from libertarian think tank the Cato Institute.
In 2025, the US government spent approximately 33.8% of GDP.
DSA insists the funding for their pie-in-the-sky social programs will come from “aggressive wealth taxes on the richest individuals and corporations” — but in reality, taxing the rich would only cover a fraction of its wishlist, the report states.
“The DSA is selling people a bigger government and saying someone else will pay for it. It’s mathematically impossible,” said report author Adam N. Michel.
Among the priciest items DSA intends to pursue are universal health care, which would cost between $39.9 trillion and $75.4 trillion over the next decade; slavery reparations ($13.5 trillion to $28 trillion); and a federal jobs guarantee ($4.4 trillion to $60.4 trillion).
At the high end, government spending would reach an eye-popping 92% of GDP, according to the institute.
“It is hard to comprehend. It is closer to Soviet-style communism than European welfare states,” Michel said.
Paying for the DSA’s agenda would require doubling federal revenue at the low end and quadrupling it at the high end, in addition to the $24 trillion ten-year deficit already estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.
DSA’s favorite claim to justify the cost of their budget-busting programs is that the lion’s share will be covered by the ultra-wealthy and corporate profits.
But according to Cato, those numbers simply don’t add up.
The combined net worth of the 400 richest Americans reached $6.6 trillion in 2025, and seizing every penny would cover only about 9% of the low-end requirement and just 3% of the high-end.
Meanwhile, corporate profits after taxes are projected to total about $35 trillion over the next decade — enough to fund just half of the low-end estimate and 17% of the high-end.
DSA national co-chair Megan Romer embarrassingly failed to provide a cogent definition for her proclamation that they would “tax the rich” to fund their freebies in an interview with The New Yorker Radio Hour earlier this month.
“Well, what does ‘taxing the hell out of them’ mean?’” editor David Remnick asked, a seemingly straightforward question about one of DSA’s most frequently touted agenda items.
“Uh, yeah, you know, again, I don’t have like a solid…” Romer awkwardly chuckled, unable to string together a bare-bones definition off the cuff.
“But shouldn’t you?” Remnick pressed. “If you’re the co-chair of the DSA, shouldn’t you be more specific than ‘taxing the hell’ out of something? What exactly do you mean?”
“Um, that’s a good question,” Romer said, caught completely off-guard at the challenge to the catchy slogan, which was also often used by Mamdani during his campaign.
“So again, it’s democracy, right?” she continued.
“And we have to look at what we have to spend and what we need. We don’t want to depend on the existence of millionaires because that means people are still getting exploited,” she said in a meandering, word-salad reply.
