Posted by
Defend America on Tuesday, March 09, 2010 6:48:33 PM
Obamacare Is a Budgetary Disaster [James C. Capretta]
Congressman Paul Ryan’s systematic dismantling
of the argument that Obamacare would cut the budget deficit, delivered
at the Blair House “summit” meeting, has gotten a lot of attention in
recent days, and deservedly so. The Wall Street Journal ran the full text of his presentation on its opinion page yesterday and amplified his arguments in an editorial
of its own. At Blair House, neither the president nor any other
Democrat present offered a direct rebuttal to Ryan’s critique. The
president chose to change the subject instead.
This week, however, top administration officials have come forward with a belated defense — of sorts.
First, OMB director Peter Orszag penned a blog post
taking issue with one of Ryan’s points, namely that the plan relies on
ten years of offsets to pay for only six years of spending. And today,
Orszag and White House health-reform czar Nancy-Ann DeParle have an op-ed in the Washington Post that expands upon Orszag’s post.
Orszag and DeParle start by agreeing with Ryan that delaying the
start date of an entitlement expansion is a tried-and-true budget
gimmick, designed to push the full cost of the additional spending
outside of the “budget window” covered by a cost estimate.
But, not to worry, they say. In this instance, it’s not a gimmick
because the deficit reduction from their plan just keeps growing over
time. They claim the president’s health plan would produce deficit
reduction of $100 billion over ten years and $1 trillion in the second
decade.
Of course, there’s another reason besides balancing revenue and
spending to push the start of an entitlement back, and that’s to make
the ten-year cost look much smaller than it really is. Recall that the
president promised in his address to Congress last September
to deliver a bill that costs only “$900 billion” over a decade. The new
entitlements the Democrats want to create would cost much, much more
than $90 billion per year. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says
they will cost about $200 billion per year by 2019. And so, to get the
media to now say his plan costs only “$1 trillion” (what’s $100 billion
among friends!), the administration delays the coverage expansion
provisions until 2014. Never mind that the president also says the
uninsured can’t wait a day longer for the legislation. Once enacted, he
would make them wait — for four years.
http://healthcare.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmRmNzg2NDM4MGJiMWIzMTAzMzY1YWQ0Mjc5ZTJkYTc=