One of the frequent Democratic defenses against the GOP-led effort at repealing the massive healthcare law is that it actually would increase the deficit, not reduce it.
It is an argument that has been backed by the Congressional Budget Office and parroted by the mainstream media with surprisingly little detailed analysis: that President Barack Obama’s signature legislative effort manages to cut the deficit while providing healthcare for everyone. Who could argue with that?
But on Sunday, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer took a good look at the numbers and found them laughable.
In a column in The Washington Post, Krauthammer asked, “Suppose someone — say, the president of United States — proposed the following: We are drowning in debt. More than $14 trillion right now. I've got a great idea for deficit reduction. It will yield a savings of $230 billion over the next 10 years: We increase spending by $540 billion while we increase taxes by $770 billion.
“He'd be laughed out of town. And yet, this is precisely what the Democrats are claiming as a virtue of Obamacare. During the debate over Republican attempts to repeal it, one of the Democrats' major talking points has been that Obamacare reduces the deficit — and therefore repeal raises it — by $230 billion. Why, the Congressional Budget Office says exactly that.”
rofllol :rofl And there are people out there that actually believed them!!! rofllol :rofl And that health care would get better and our premiums would go down. Some people are so gullible!! rofllol :rofl
I do trust the CBO to do a reasonably unbiased review of the costs of new laws.
But the problem is they have to use the information and assumptions given to them, even if such stuff may never happen, or if you get to collect taxes for 10 years before paying any benefits.
I'm surprised the CBO wasn't told that scientists predict it will rain $1000 gold coins on Jan 1st, 2014. Using conservative estimates of how many gold coins could be collected, we'd could get the new health care bill for free!
pineinthegrass wrote: I posted about this earlier.
I do trust the CBO to do a reasonably unbiased review of the costs of new laws.
But the problem is they have to use the information and assumptions given to them, even if such stuff may never happen, or if you get to collect taxes for 10 years before paying any benefits.
I'm surprised the CBO wasn't told that scientists predict it will rain $1000 gold coins on Jan 1st, 2014. Using conservative estimates of how many gold coins could be collected, we'd could get the new health care bill for free!
Garbage in garbage out, you have to trust those who want the bill to NOT smell like dead carp.
Garbage in garbage out, you have to trust those who want the bill to NOT smell like dead carp.
