The White House Council of Economic Advisers warned in a new report Tuesday that "socialism is making a comeback" in the United States, and compared several top Democrats and the media to Marx, Lenin, and Mao.

“Coincident with the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth, socialism is making a comeback in American political discourse,” the White House economists wrote in a report titled "The Opportunity Costs of Socialism."

The report is aimed at disparaging ideas favored by liberal Democrats, and concludes that if the U.S. adopted Venezuela-style policies, the economy would shrink by 40 percent, or about $24,000 per year for the average person.

Unusual for a document published by the Council of Economic Advisers, the report also names top liberal Democrats and suggests that their proposals or rhetoric lie on a "continuum" of socialism.

For example, the report says that Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have expressed "similar concerns" to those raised by Karl Marx and Mao Zedong, by claiming that corporations exploit workers.

At another point, the analysis lumps Warren and Sanders in with Vladimir Lenin in addition to Marx and Mao: “The socialist narrative names the oppressors of the vulnerable, such as the bourgeoisie (Marx), kulaks (Lenin), landlords (Mao), and giant corporations (Sanders and Warren)."

And, in a footnote, the report also groups Warren and Sanders with Fidel Castro, noting that they all have blamed "speculators" for high prices in certain contexts.

Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, has described himself as a democratic socialist. Warren has said that she is a capitalist.

Neither has called for violent revolution. Tuesday's report includes a disclaimer that "contemporary democratic socialists denounce state brutality and would allow individuals to privately own the means of production in many industries."

At the same time, it criticizes policies favored by Democrats that would involve greater government regulation of the economy or higher government spending and taxing.

Part of the document is dedicated to an argument against "Medicare for All," the Democratic proposal that would enroll everyone in the U.S. in Medicare. The Council of Economic Advisers faults journalists for reporting on the proposal favorably.

"Modern journalists and analysts routinely claim that single-payer programs are more efficient—and thus are similar in spirit to Lenin and Mao, who justified government takeovers on the basis of the virtues of single-payer programs," the report says.

No author is listed on the report, but Kevin Hassett, the chairman of the council, said on a press call Tuesday that "this was a topic that everybody agreed would be a worthy one, given how socialism is something we've been reading about in the news."

Hassett, a Ph.D. economist who previously worked at the right-of-center American Enterprise Institute, was backed by many Democratic economists to be Trump's top economic adviser.

Typically, the role of the Council of Economic Advisers is to provide economic and data analysis for the White House. Recent past reports have focused on the economic of tax reform, welfare requirements, and other topics relevant to what the administration is working on.

Hassett said Tuesday that the report on the costs of socialism was meant to counteract the rising popularity of policies deemed socialist.

"My role at CEA is not to be a politician but to be an analyst," he said. "And if our study convinced people of all parties that, if they rely on central planning and try to reduce the influence of private property by either specifically nationalizing things or regulating and taxing things just about into oblivion, that that would be bad for the overall economy, then I would feel like the paper had accomplished its objective."

This post has been updated to include greater detail and the specific references to politicians.