The Congressional Budget Office has to do the committee chair's bidding; it is not allowed to properly score ObamaCare - given fantasy it has to put on a straight face, pretend it's real and give the score. Even when everyone knows it is fantasy.
The bill CBO scored this week will add $562 billion to the deficit, not help it. Pelosi, Harry and Obama - well, the first two anyway - know the surplus number is a lie. It's their lie.
Even the New York Times can tell the truth now that they think it's too late:
... In reality, if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges: The health care reform legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits, by $562 billion.Posted by Ron Hebron at March 21, 2010 08:35 AM | Email ThisGimmick No. 1 is the way the bill front-loads revenues and backloads spending. That is, the taxes and fees it calls for are set to begin immediately, but its new subsidies would be deferred so that the first 10 years of revenue would be used to pay for only 6 years of spending.
Even worse, some costs are left out entirely. To operate the new programs over the first 10 years, future Congresses would need to vote for $114 billion in additional annual spending. But this so-called discretionary spending is excluded from the Congressional Budget Office's tabulation.
Consider, too, the fate of the $70 billion in premiums expected to be raised in the first 10 years for the legislation's new long-term health care insurance program. This money is counted as deficit reduction, but the benefits it is intended to finance are assumed not to materialize in the first 10 years, so they appear nowhere in the cost of the legislation.
Another vivid example of how the legislation manipulates revenues is the provision to have corporations deposit $8 billion in higher estimated tax payments in 2014, thereby meeting fiscal targets for the first five years. But since the corporations' actual taxes would be unchanged, the money would need to be refunded the next year. The net effect is simply to shift dollars from 2015 to 2014.
In addition to this accounting sleight of hand, the legislation would blithely rob Peter to pay Paul. For example, it would use $53 billion in anticipated higher Social Security taxes to offset health care spending. Social Security revenues are expected to rise as employers shift from paying for health insurance to paying higher wages. But if workers have higher wages, they will also qualify for increased Social Security benefits when they retire. So the extra money raised from payroll taxes is already spoken for. (Indeed, it is unlikely to be enough to keep Social Security solvent.) It cannot be used for lowering the deficit.
A government takeover of all federally financed student loans -- which obviously has nothing to do with health care -- is rolled into the bill because it is expected to generate $19 billion in deficit reduction.
Finally, in perhaps the most amazing bit of unrealistic accounting, the legislation proposes to trim $463 billion from Medicare spending and use it to finance insurance subsidies. But Medicare is already bleeding red ink, and the health care bill has no reforms that would enable the program to operate more cheaply in the future. Instead, Congress is likely to continue to regularly override scheduled cuts in payments to Medicare doctors and other providers.
Removing the unrealistic annual Medicare savings ($463 billion) and the stolen annual revenues from Social Security and long-term care insurance ($123 billion), and adding in the annual spending that so far is not accounted for ($114 billion) quickly generates additional deficits of $562 billion in the first 10 years. And the nation would be on the hook for two more entitlement programs rapidly expanding as far as the eye can see.
The bottom line is that Congress would spend a lot more; steal funds from education, Social Security and long-term care to cover the gap; and promise that future Congresses will make up for it by taxing more and spending less.
It should accepted without reservation that former chief economic policy adviser to U.S. Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, Chief Economist for the Council of Economic Advisers to President George W. Bush and Senior Staff Economist on President George H.W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers would never consider issuing an opinion that is in any way partisan.
Furthermore, which administration(s) have more credibility on deficit busting budgets than those which Holtz-Eakin served as a leading policy advisor?
Some may claim that the appointment Holtz-Eakin to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in 2009 by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is reason to question Holtz-Eakin's impartiality on the partisan debate on HCR.
But this is nonsense. Holtz-Eakin is not a hack for Republican opposition on HCR with a record of serving deficit bloating Republican administrations.
To the contrary, Holtz-Eakin should be a respectable voice on policy.
After all, without Holtz-Eakin and his knowledge and non-partisan analysis how would we have ever known that McCain helped create BlackBerry
And don't forget that the government also tells me that it is an hour earlier than it actually is. ONOZ!
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on March 21, 2010 10:40 AMI cannot believe someone with such a shallow intellect is allowed to post on this site's front page.
Posted by: John Jensen on March 21, 2010 04:40 PMThis will promote a substantive argument for a change :)
HR 3590 was voted down - not gonna happen.
Do you know the difference between a letter to the editor and a reported article? Ron Hebron doesn't.
The "actual numbers" are available at CBO.gov. And HR 3590 passed about 14 hours before your comment.
That's right: health care reform has passed. Are we a tyranny yet?
Posted by: John Jensen on March 22, 2010 03:43 PM- Where are your numbers for us to discuss ?
" Health care reform has passed. Are we a tyranny yet? "
This cannot be answered this thing kicks in, but the handwriting is on the wall. In other ways, this country is a soft tyranny and it could be argued that Bush administration was a soft tyranny, but less so - both too progressive.
The way that the entire HCR debate was handled is akin to a banana republic - loose and fast with the rules with a a quasi-fascistic approach by the Democratic congressional leadership and the Pres. from the get-go.
You will never convince most of the readership otherwise. Keep drinking the Obamunist kool aid.
I don't care if the NYT publishes an Op/Ed, but Hebron said the NYT reporters were behind this piece. He thinks a letter to the editor is the same thing is a front-page, reported story. That's because he's a moron. It's my "business" to point out when someone is an idiot.
My numbers are available at CBO.gov.
Banana republic? You mean 60 Senators and a major of House members passed the bill? After they won in free and fair elections? Right...
Posted by: John Jensen on March 22, 2010 08:15 PMJJ- You are obfuscating again. My comment has nothing to with how they were elected. It is all about the tactics that were used by the Democrat leadership of Congress and the White House and I stand by my previous comments. Here is some more corroborating evidence;
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/03/025902.php
Posted by: KDS on March 22, 2010 09:31 PMHere's why Democrats won on the health care bill: We trounced Republicans in the 2006 and 2008 elections, with free and fair elections. Then, a super-majority of Senators and a majority of Congressmen & women voted for a health care bill. Scary! Banana republic? You mean, democratic republic -- a representative democracy.
Posted by: John Jensen on March 22, 2010 09:37 PMThe Democrats will get their asses handed to them in Nov 2010 - you have underestimated the collective outrage. This is supposed to be a Democratic republic - right now it is out of control. This election will have consequences.
Posted by: KDS on March 22, 2010 09:43 PMNovember 2010 will be a tough election for Democrats, but I judge bills based on their policy and not their politics. Plus, once the bill becomes law tomorrow, voters will realize that the world isn't ending and Republicans will have to explain their hyperbole and obstructionism. I'm fine running on health care reform, because I'm proud that we fought for a policy that'll give 32 million people health insurance.
You want to deny those millions health care? You want to keep pre-existing conditions around? Then run on repeal, but it's a losing message.
Posted by: John Jensen on March 22, 2010 10:10 PMFalse, that's your erroneous interpretation of what I said. It has nothing to do with that ASS-umption you made.
The rest of what you wrote is based on a fundamentally dishonest premise. More about that this evening..
Posted by: KDS on March 23, 2010 08:26 AM