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Obama warns freshman Dems: Watch the price on your progressive, 'bold ideas'
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights

Obama warns freshman Dems: Watch the price on your progressive, 'bold ideas'

Didn't get into specifics

Former President Barack Obama reportedly offered some words of advice to freshman House Democrats Monday night, warning congressional newbies against offering up liberal policies without having answers for how to pay for them.

What are the details?

According to The Washington Post, Obama was speaking to several lawmakers, and some attendees "took his words as a cautionary note about Medicare-for-all and the Green New Deal" embraced by an increasingly progressive left.

"He said we [as Democrats] shouldn't be afraid of big, bold ideas," an unnamed source told the Post, "but also need to think in the nitty-gritty about how those big, bold ideas will work and how you pay for them."

The Post went on to report that Obama "argued that voters care about the costs associated with policies and that Democrats should be ready to answer questions about how they will pay for an idea while making big promises to constituents."

The former president's advice may well have been intended for more than just the new Democrats on the Hill. The 10-year, $97 trillion Green New Deal, proposed by freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), has been endorsed by nearly every 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) long push for Medicare-for-all has gone from a "pipe dream to [a] mainstream" position, according to Roll Call. Over a decade, independent studies estimate the cost of such a program would range from $25 trillion to $35 trillion, Fox News reported.

Anything else?

Obama also reportedly criticized the Republican Party for moving too far to the right under President Donald Trump, and praised the late John McCain (R-Ariz.) as being an example of someone who upheld traditional GOP values.

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