Deficit Reduction Assumes Health Care Reform
[Guest post by DRJ]
President Obama’s $3.8T budget claims to be consistent with a long-term deficit reduction goal of $1.2T over the next decade. However, ABC News’ Jake Tapper reports those reductions assume Congress will pass health care reform:
“We took a very simple approach,” said Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag. “Since both the House and Senate had passed legislation, we took the average of the two” using numbers from the Congressional Budget Office.
That means the administration is counting on $150 billion in deficit reduction from a health care reform bill that is — for now — stalled in Congress with no clear path forward.”
Robert Gibbs explained the Democrats are only one vote away from having the votes to complete health care reform, so it doesn’t make “much sense to not assume that it should be in the budget.”
— DRJ
Do the Dems ever live in anything remotely close to the real world? This Alice in Wonderland act is getting mighty tired, and the rest of the country’s definitely not amused.
Dmac (539341) — 2/1/2010 @ 3:43 pmIt’s not like they’re not doing this on purpose.
happyfeet (71f55e) — 2/1/2010 @ 3:47 pmLet’s get this right. Are they saying that (1) health care reform will pass; and (2) it will save money?
Let’s see, adding 30 million uninsured people to health care will reduce costs.
Fuzzy Demo math.
Alta Bob (5daf3f) — 2/1/2010 @ 3:48 pmi’ve got a really “out of the box” idea for cutting the deficit:
let’s spend less money.
(hey, its so wacky it might just w*rk. %-)
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 2/1/2010 @ 3:50 pmThat’s clever. Now when the defecit reduction fails to materialize, they can claim it’s because of the GOP’s “obstructionism” blocking the health bills, regardless of the real reason.
roy (a1e331) — 2/1/2010 @ 3:53 pmWell this is sure reality challenged…
I think an idea for cutting the budget would be a simple as do what companies do … layoff, about 25% of the federal government, would be a good first step. If that didn’t do it, bump it up to 50%.
bill-tb (541ea9) — 2/1/2010 @ 3:53 pmIt’s OK. Everything will change staring in Jan, 2011 anyway. +70 House, +12 Senate.
Kevin Murphy (805c5b) — 2/1/2010 @ 3:53 pmi can think of whole Departments that could be eliminated: HUD and Education, for starters.
pass a one size fits all flat tax, and the IRS could be reduced to about 10% of it’s current staffing or less, since they’d only have to count the money and do a simple audit.
you could get all office supplies through competitive bids from Staples, Office Max, etc, and other supplies thorough other vendors, and cut GSA way back also.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 2/1/2010 @ 3:59 pmthey can claim it’s because of the GOP’s “obstructionism” blocking the health bills, regardless of the real reason.
Except that won’t work anymore, and if they learned anything from Brown’s historic upset, it’s either get our financial house in order or face the consequences.
Dmac (539341) — 2/1/2010 @ 4:00 pmThe CBO said that the “savings” in the bill were all fantasies, fantasies that they were required to score by Congress’ Alice in Wonderland rules.
The Democrats are not engaging in “fuzzy math”. They are just outright lying.
SPQR (26be8b) — 2/1/2010 @ 4:02 pmI don’t think that anyone believes them anymore except for a few true believers. Say what they want, it won’t matter. Unless the economy improves, and there is no reason to believe it will, the Democrats are heading for a 1974 style collapse. The 5.7% GDP rise in the last quarter is a combination of inventory rebuilding and stimulus that will be revised back down by April.
For example.
Before we get into the main discussion point, let me briefly comment on today’s GDP numbers, which came in at an amazingly strong 5.7% growth rate. While that is stronger than I thought it would be (I said 4-5%), there are reasons to be cautious before we sound the “all clear” bell.
First, over 60% (3.7%) of the growth came from inventory rebuilding, as opposed to just 0.7% in the third quarter. If you examine the numbers, you find that inventories had dropped below sales, so a buildup was needed. Increasing inventories add to GDP, while, counterintuitively, sales from inventory decrease GDP. Businesses are just adjusting to the New Normal level of sales. I expect further inventory build-up in the next two quarters, although not at this level, and then we level off the latter half of the year.
While rebuilding inventories is a very good thing, that growth will only continue if sales grow. Otherwise inventories will find the level of the New Normal and stop growing. And if you look at consumer spending in the data, you find that it actually declined in the 4th quarter, both annually and from the previous quarter. “Domestic demand” declined from 2.3% in the third quarter to only 1.7% in the fourth quarter. Part of that is clearly the absence of “Cash for Clunkers,” but even so that is not a sign of economic strength.
It’s pretty negative.
Mike K (2cf494) — 2/1/2010 @ 4:13 pmour whole little country is heading for a collapse… it’s very concerning to me… and Team R isn’t seriously and unequivocally speaking to how dire the situation is… which, that is very concerning to me as well.
Can you imagine if our little were blogless?
We would just have no idea.
happyfeet (71f55e) — 2/1/2010 @ 4:22 pmIf the CBO assumes healthcare reform passes, they probably are not assuming any doctor fix, an offsetting $250 billion, is in the numbers, since the bill has not been introduced. That’s one of the dishonest ways they arrived at a savings figure in the first place.
daleyrocks (718861) — 2/1/2010 @ 4:29 pm“Let’s get this right. Are they saying that (1) health care reform will pass; and (2) it will save money?”
Have you been paying attention? They’ve been touting that health care reform improves the deficit figures for a while now.
imdw (017d51) — 2/1/2010 @ 4:29 pmThe idea that enacting “healthcare reform” will reduce the deficit in any way shape or form is laughable.
JD (6ed683) — 2/1/2010 @ 4:30 pmthat’s supposed to say *little country* …
happyfeet (71f55e) — 2/1/2010 @ 4:31 pmthe assumings are all Orszag’s OMB I think.
happyfeet (71f55e) — 2/1/2010 @ 4:33 pmThe assumptions that they use for the CBO estimates and the subsequent Dem claims of deficit reduction is an insult to anyone, D or R, with a brain.
JD (6ed683) — 2/1/2010 @ 4:40 pmLet’s see now, they’re going to reduce the deficit/debt by $150B through savings from ObamaCare, and another $65B from income from Cap&Tax fees…
AD - RtR/OS! (810a60) — 2/1/2010 @ 4:44 pmthat’s $215B that is not credible, on top of the $1.6T that they’ve got scheduled…so now, it’s (the deficit) up to $1.815Trillion for FY-2011!
Morons, Fools, A$$Holes!
Comment by JD — 2/1/2010 @ 4:40 pm
I’ve stepped on potato bugs that demonstrated more intelligence.
AD - RtR/OS! (810a60) — 2/1/2010 @ 4:46 pmMamma always said, “Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched.”
What a bunch of maroons.
PatriotRider (1729de) — 2/1/2010 @ 4:59 pmIt’s just desperately sad to think of all the hard work and sacrifice what went into creating the wealth and prosperity what this dickhead is squandering so wantonly and so fast.
happyfeet (713679) — 2/1/2010 @ 5:26 pmI’ve been paying attention, and the best estimate given was that health care reform would be revenue neutral (and even that was because the taxes for it would start immediately, but the payouts wouldn’t start until 2014, and the estimate was only for 10 years).
As far as touting goes, the Lemon Drop Kid touted horses…doesn’t mean he knew what he was talking about.
Some chump (d97978) — 2/1/2010 @ 5:53 pmTwo points… Okay, one request for information and one point without information.
1) SPQR, I’d love to see a source for your CBO statement. Not that I don’t believe it, I do, but I’d just love to see that source.
2) I understand a large chunk of income also assumes revenue from crap and tax. And, no, I don’t have a source for that understanding.
John Hitchcock (b082bd) — 2/1/2010 @ 11:56 pmOn FNC they reported that the budget also included revenue from “Cap’n’Trade” passage into law…
Let me see, I have 24 chickens, I can get 2 dozen eggs a day. I’ll be rich, rich rich!!!
sure.
tomw
tomw (25170a) — 2/2/2010 @ 3:43 am