However, the fact-sheet highlighted for the first time that many of Sanders’ expected cost-saving measures relied on conjecture and best-case scenarios. For example, Sanders’ document asserts that a “modest tax on Wall Street speculation … will raise an estimated $2.4 trillion over ten years” and, in one fell swoop, make all “public colleges, universities and trade schools tuition-free … and cancel all student debt over the next decade.”

The proposal specifically would place a “0.5 percent tax on stock trades – 50 cents on every $100 of stock – a 0.1 percent fee on bond trades, and a 0.005 percent fee on derivative trades.”

The National Review has likened a tax on so-called “Wall Street speculation” to a de facto tax on savings, saying the Sanders plan is untested and “would mean paying $25 to the federal government every time you traded $5,000 worth of stock — or five times what you’d pay the typical online brokerage in fees. … Over the long term, that imposes serious costs on actively traded funds such as the ones containing many Americans’ retirement funds.”