Now that Bernie Sanders has routed Hillary Clinton by 22 points in New Hampshire, the American people might be curious to learn more about some of his specific policy proposals, starting with his tax plan. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation has scored Sanders's plan and has found it would cause the after-tax incomes of those in the middle of the income spectrum—those with incomes between the 40th and 60th percentiles—to drop by between 16.3 and 17 percent. In other words, Sanders's tax plan would reduce the typical American's income by a sixth.

This would result partly from Sanders's raising of taxes on the middle class (and on everyone else), and partly from the ill-effects that his myriad tax hikes would have on the economy. In terms of tax increases for the middle class, Sanders would add a new 6.2 percent employer-side payroll tax that his campaign calls an "income-based health care premium paid by employers," which would be passed on to employees in the form of lower wages. He would also add a new 2.2 percent "income-based [health-care] premium paid by households," which the Tax Foundation writes "is equivalent to increasing all tax bracket rates by 2.2 percentage points." It turns out that government-run "single payer" health care requires a whole lot of payers.

In all, the Tax Foundation finds that Sanders's tax plan would be a $13.6 trillion tax hike—27 times as large as Hillary Clinton's proposed $498 billion tax hike.

Sanders's plan would also shrink the U.S. gross domestic product by 9.5 percent over ten years in relation to what it otherwise would have been, according to the scoring. That means it would decrease the size of the economy by about $2.6 trillion—or about $8,000 for every American, or $32,000 per family of four. If a rising tide lifts all boats, Sanders's plan seems designed to sink the whole American fleet.

While middle-class Americans' incomes would fall by a sixth under Sanders's plan, the incomes of the top one percent would fall even more, dropping by a quarter. That might provide some solace for Sanders supports—if everyone is less prosperous, everyone should at least be more equal.

Jeffrey H. Anderson, the author of An Alternative to Obamacare, is a Hudson Institute senior fellow.