Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) AP Photo

(CNSNews.com) - Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders says, if elected his first budget would not be balanced and “taxes will go up.”

Sanders was describing himself as a “deficit hawk” on Bloomberg Politics’ With All Due Respect when he was asked if he was president if the first budget he would submit would be balanced.

“No, no. Arguably you could not do that,” Sanders responded.

Sanders then went on to attack last weeks Wall Street Journal article calling his proposals “the largest peacetime expansion of government in modern American history.”

“The Wall Street Journal was dead wrong on a number of points that they were making,” Sanders said.

“They suggest that I think I’m spending $18 trillion over a 10 year period, $15 (trillion) of that was on healthcare. What they forgot to say is that when we move toward a national healthcare program, the kind of program that exists on every other major country on earth, the cost per capita on healthcare will go significantly down.”

Sanders continued, “So yes, taxes would go up but you would not have to pay private health insurance as an individual or as a business.”