Rep. Shadegg, Blame the Democrats, Not CBO
Rep. John Shadegg, R-AZ, is one of the most reliable fiscal conservatives in DC. That’s why it pains me to disagree slightly with his post about the CBO. Here’s what he said that I object to:
Could you make your family budget look good in a ten-year analysis if you counted ten years of income but only seven of expenditures? That’s what the Congressional Budget Office did in their report on Senator Max Baucus’s health care bill.
Their subpar accounting includes revenue from tax increases and cuts to Medicare and Medicare Advantage starting in 2010. However, the bulk of expenditures begin in 2013, when many of the bill’s programs go into effect. It sounds like the CBO has started taking accounting tips from old Enron manuals. How can Democrats be taken seriously if they use ten years of revenue to pay for seven years of expenditures?
I’d suggest that the CBO did its job. Based on what I’ve read, the CBO didn’t omit these things in their summary report. It’s unfair to accuse the CBO of “taking accounting tips from old Enron manuals.” Again, it isn’t the CBO that’s playing games with the numbers.
Rep. Shadegg has a right to be upset, though. It’s just that his frustration shoulid be directed at the Senate Finance Committee’s Democrats in general and at Sen. Baucus in particular. Sen. Baucus wrote the bill in such a way as to reach this outcome.
Instead of criticizing the CBO, Republicans should be highlighting (a) the massive tax increases included in the bill, (b) the gigantic cuts in Medicare (approximately $404,000,000,000) and (c) the huge tax increase levied against people who aren’t covered through their employer and who choose not to buy a government-approved health insurance policy.
Republicans should tell everyone who’ll listen that Sen. Baucus wants to increase taxes on the manufacture of medical devices. That’s such bad policy that Gov. Pawlenty, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Sen. Al Franken immediately criticized that provision. The likelihood of that trio of Minnesota politicians agreeing on something again is roughly the same as the odds of winning a powerball jackpot AND getting hit twice with a bolt of lightnig duringa single thunderstorm.
I’d also have Rep. Shadegg look at how the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon criticized Senate Democrats:
The biggest gimmick employed by the bill is that its individual mandate pushes more than half of the legislation’s cost off-budget, and onto businesses and individuals who will have to shoulder that burden. A real-world parallel already exists in the Massachusetts health care plan, where private-sector mandates account for 60 percent of the cost.
I’d also recommend that Rep. Shadegg, and all Republicans, criticize the Baucus bill for its “substantial expansion of Medicaid”, something that I call the biggest unfunded mandate dumped on states in the history of this nation.
I’d also take advantage of the teachable moment given by the Medicaid unfunded mandate to talk about how many taxes get raised when the federal goveernment dumps something into the states’ laps through an unfunded mandate, then say the same thing happens on a smaller, though still significant scale, when state government dumps unfunded mandates into cities’ laps.
Frankly, the Baucus bill is a great opportunity for conservatives to point out how health insurance, like government, gets expensive because of government’s mandates. This is a great opportunity for Conservatives to teach the virtues of limited government by trusting the American people. It’s our way of telling people that we aren’t opposed to all regulation, just those that well-informed people can figure out on their own.
Technorati Tags: CBO, John Shadegg, Tim Pawlenty, Conservatism, Limited Government, Medicaid, Unfunded Mandates, Tax Increases, Excise Tax, Medicare Cuts, Max Baucus, Amy Klobuchar, Al Franken, Shell Games, Democrats
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
October 10th, 2009 at 12:50 am
remember it like a lot of those info mercials you see on tv with low introductory price, if it passes the price tag will rise. also remember when dealing with the government, it they say it will cost 1 billion expect to cost at least 3, if they say they are going to save 1 million don’t be surpised if it really cost 5 million.
October 12th, 2009 at 8:34 am
The cost overrun on the original stated costs to Medicare and Social Security are nearly to infinity, especially since the donkeys promised (”cross my heart and hope to die”) Social Security in particular wouldn’t cost a penny from guvmint once it got going, and would never cost more than a piddly little 2% to the worker and his boss EVUH!
And just to think, the donkeys have been bankrolling that caretaker for years - you know, the one who feeds the unicorns and spreads pixie dust, every morning and evening, over the capital so those poor, abused and overworked congresscritters can pretend to be doing something that will really help we, the people.