Peter Suderman, writing in Reason:
Since the New Deal, American entitlements have consistently grown faster than projected in size, scope, and cost. Like unwanted houseguests, they cost money you don’t have, and they can’t be kicked out. Reform and repeal efforts are about as successful as kindergarten experiments with do-it-yourself haircuts. Indeed, the health care bill’s very structure is a testament to this fact. Much of it is funded with changes designed to eliminate waste in Medicare and Medicaid—changes that could, or at least ought, to have been used to reform those programs, both of which are unsustainable. Yet the only way these changes were politically viable was if they were made in order to fund an all-new benefit.
To hear the bill’s supporters explain it, health reform constitutes a triumph of fiscal responsibility—lowering the deficit, extending the solvency of Medicare, and stifling the growth of health care costs. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), a staunch pro-lifer whose last-minute decision to vote yes assured the bill’s passage, was typical in his declaration that the legislation would provide “health security and financial security” to Americans. “This is a good bill for the American people,” he told MSNBC. “We’re not adding to the deficit. Indeed, the CBO says the bill will actually reduce the deficit over time.”
This case was crucial to the bill’s last-minute success. In the preceding week, it became increasingly clear that a number of votes were contingent upon the bill receiving certain scores from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). And when the scores—a $940 billion price tag for the first 10 years, $130 billion worth of deficit reduction in the first decade, and $1.2 trillion worth of reduction in the following 10 years—came through, many wavering Democrats hopped on board.
But health care votes bought with promises of fiscal responsibility might as well have been bought with suitcases full of Monopoly money. The truth is that the bill is the exact opposite of fiscally responsible.
A little more than 24 hours after releasing the reconciliation bill’s preliminary score—the one that picked up the majority of the headlines and votes—the CBO released another report, this one produced at the request of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). It said that if in addition to the health care bill, the Democrats also pass legislation known as the “doc fix”—which would cost an additional $208 billion—the total effect would be to add $59 billion to the deficit over the first 10 years.
Defenders of the reform bill now argue that the doc fix is a separate issue. But Democrats didn’t always think so: Last summer’s first draft of the House health care bill included the doc fix. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has reportedly used the provision to ensure support from the American Medical Association. Are we somehow supposed to believe that it’s good enough to bargain with but not good enough to figure into the budget?
Maybe the problem is something more elementary: Democrats just don’t know how to count. Hard to believe? The CBO’s letter also says that, contrary to administration claims, the bill won’t both reduce the deficit and extend the solvency of Medicare. One or the other, perhaps, but not both.
Nor is that the only double count. The score for the Senate bill includes $72 billion in revenues generated by the CLASS Act, a federally-backed disability insurance program. But that $72 billion is just premium revenue that will eventually have to be used to pay out benefits. The score counts that revenue anyway, despite the fact that, according to the CBO, it would likely add to the deficit in the long term.
Eventually, the deficit damage starts to add up. Toss out a few of the bill’s more fanciful assumptions—the implementation of the tax on so-called “Cadillac” insurance plans (already successfully delayed by a full five years by benefits-rich unions), cuts to Medicare payments, and a planned slowing of the growth of insurance subsidies—and the CBO reports that, two decades out, the deficit would spike “in a broad range around one-quarter percent of GDP”—something like $600 billion. Fiscally responsible!
Why does all this matter? It’s not just the cherry-picking of figures and the rhetorical deception, it’s the country’s overall fiscal future. Thanks to a spiraling deficit, the economy is chugging merrily towards a broken bridge over a rocky canyon—a fact that almost no one from either party is willing to do anything about. America, according to the CBO, is on an “unsustainable” path, and the nation’s solid-gold credit rating may be at risk. So it doesn’t matter how many times blinkered legislators repeat to themselves, “I think I can, I think I can”: Nothing short of significant cutbacks to entitlement spending is going to magically transform the U.S. budget into the little engine that could.
Instead, politicians are paying for new entitlements by shifting money from unsustainable programs—money that ought to have gone toward getting America’s fiscal house in order.
Democrats made history all right—but only by sacrificing the future.
Guess the Reason libertarians are starting to regret all the nice things they said about Obama, back when they were playing to the hipster crowd, laughing at the uptight fear mongers screeching about the paranoid fantasy of an expanding liberal fascism.
Too little, too late to be discovering that a socialist might actual govern like one, if you ask me. But hey, thanks anyway.
Americans want socialism. That is why they elected Obama. What part of that don’t you guys understand?
President Obama is a good man. Anyone saying anything else must be a racist.
The crap pulled with the CBO numbers should be unconscionable. However, they view it as a feature, and not a bug.
Couple that with government’s long-standing and proven track record of grossly underestimating the costs of these kinds of plans, see MediCare and Part D, and then is no reason for any sentient being to think that they got it right this time around.
No racism here because the racial remark was intended to express love and admiration.
Maybe the problem is something more elementary: Democrats just don’t know how to count.
Don’t know? Don’t care.
And that Terry Michael article is a real piece of work, not to mention emblematic of the delusion that hipsters adopted so that they could say they voted with the kewl crowd.
But we all know that hipsters’ lives are empty and filled with angst. I mean, look at these Unhappy Hipsters!
Mathematics is a construct created by The Man to keep you down. What really matters is good intentions, and the way you feel.
This is the structural change we’ve all been waiting for. This is the moment when we have decoupled cause and effect. No longer will I need to be an economically productive member of society to claim the benefits I deserve. Screw work, I’ll surf all day. You won’t be able to tax me if I don’t have any income. My kids will go to public school, paid for by all of your property taxes. In the summer when the waves are bad, I’ll take some shit job in construction just long enough to work up a really good work comp claim, and that’ll pay for my new boards, just in time for winter. Plus, with any luck that new naturopathic doc I’ve been seeing will renew my scrip for pot and I’ll be set.
We’ve learned the lessons of 60 years of radical social experimentation in our schools, our universities and our government and now we’ll reap the rewards. We can all now relax and watch as the maggots consume the fallen corpse of liberty.
Whittle
In other news, Glenn Beck was at his snarky, taunting best today, to the point of offering $10 million to the first guy who wants to write a book to expose all the backroom deals that went into making this bill.
He’s also snarking big time on the “army” that Obama has on his side — the “gimme my Obama cash; no I don’t know where it comes from” crowd.
“No one is going to fight for Detroit,” he observed. Bought people don’t stay paid, and they can’t beat people who fight from principal.
You know, our black markets really have been lacking.
They told me that if they passed ObamaCare it would encourage entrepreneurism and they were right!
I think it was this weekend that that ugly harpy Anita Dunn let the mask slip on one of those shows, saying that people will like this soon-to be law once enough of them are dependent upon the subsidized part. She did, indeed, say “dependent.”
“Dependent” used to be fairly synonymous for “child.”
Alec – Wasn’t it a touch amusing to see that Mao-lovin’ harpy on there extolling the virtues of BarckyCare?
“It is true that if there is to be an historical exemption to the Cycle of Civilization it is only here that it will occur…”
Sneaking Hegel in the backdoor is he, to let him warm himself by the fire? I’d sooner leave him out in the cold to freeze to death.
I try to avoid her, because I have to by judicious in parceling out my hate lately so that there’s enough for all who deserve some.
You Conservatives and Republicans need to work with the Democrats more. That is your problem, not enough bi-partisanship, if you know what I mean.
And that’s the real problem. No one’s been willing to cut spending since Reagan made deficits fashionable.
Sorry about winning the Cold War. It won’t happen again.
Charles,
Reagan’s resort to defecit spending to re-rool and resupply the US military, after years of near-criminal neglect, directly led to the end of the cold war. That what was meant to be a short term measure became adopted as a technique for sparing folks the “pain” of scaling back entitlements and other discretionary programs is not a sign that Reagan began the fiscally irresponsible traditions of today.
There have been other notable period wher th enational debt was necessarily increased for a short time in the history of the US.
Wartime deficits in the teens and 40s were cool, and federal deficits in the 30s, 60s, and 70s were all right, but it took Reagan to make them fashionable.
Is this what you’re saying, Chuckles?
No kidding. We won’t be able to afford national defense any more.
That Terry Michaels piece is brilliant in a museum piece way. “An ideological work in progress.”
Wow.
National Lampoon wasn’t that good, back when they were.
I’m with you Alec Leamas, but I’m sorta not.
When the GOP spends excessively or poorly, its always seen as just at places like this. When the Left does it, well, “there they go again…”
Not terribly honest of our side.
Bob – let’s not overlook the fact that the Reagan spending was pushed along, in no small part, by adversarial Dem majorities in the House and Senate.
Raising an Army, a Navy, and waging war is a legitimate and necessary function of the United States Government. (It’s in that there Constitution thing) Feeding people is not. We were already spending gobs on the latter, and unless you can name a majority of Congressional Democrats in the 80s who were itching to scale back entitlements, Reagan’s choices (and W’s, for that matter) were to ensure National Security and spend into deficit, or not to ensure National Security at all. (See Carter, Jimmy)
Sucks, but it’s what we’ve got to work with – the same argument will be made again when this HC thing kicks in.
Thanks for the blanket statement. You were saying what again about honesty?
When the GOP spends excessively or poorly, its always seen as just at places like this. When the Left does it, well, “there they go again…”
Not terribly honest of our side.
Because nobody here complained loudly about Congressional spending in the early oughts, nor about the fact that W seemed to have lost his veto pen. We never shone a spotlight on “compassionate conservatism” and exactly what it entailed. Nope, we’re just a bunch of dumb cheerleaders who thought all that spending was just dandy.
Don’t let little things like history or evidence trip you up, mcgruder.
There is nothing inherently wrong with deficit spending, individuals and businesses do it all the time. What matters is what the borrowed capital is being invested in, is it being used to support the productive, or subsidize the nonproductive?
Alec, I broadly support Reagan and Bush (both of them) in their Nat Sec expansions, but deficits are deficits and mercurially expanding deficits are just that. It’s rank dishonesty to run as the party of fiscal sanity when you wont make the off-setting cuts–at least politically, before the closed door stuff goes down and the cuts are reinstated–on domestic spending or so-called entitlement reforms.
I get the “Constitution thing” you refer to, even if Obama doesnt, but I argue you posit false choices. Looking back, I’m not entirely certain that Reagan and Bush I or II fought in any fashion to materially cut spending or reign in entitlements. Hell, the bitter fights were over stuff like the Iraq war votes. In short, my argument to all is that you dont have to trade economic security (China owning a slug of Treasuries, our obviously dishonest AAA-rating) for National Security.
BH, Sad. Thats a pretty bad faith comment right there. That said, I will withdraw the “always.” I speak only for myself.
One ought not write ought where one means aught or naught; the thought that one was caught leaves one fraught that what he bought has not taught what he sought.
That happens a lot.
I’ll retract the implication of dishonesty, mcg. I was only responding in kind. “places like this”, “not terribly honest of our side”.
Sloppy and overly broad would be more appropriate.
Wall Street’s way ahead of you bro.
but chicks with the big boobies are teh hawt
I’d have to look it up mcgruder, but I seem to recall that Reagan was the only leader of the modern era (since the end of WWII) under whom the government actually shrank in size as opposed to relentlessly expanding. Now I admit that I could be conflating that with the literal size of government, i.e. number of employees, etc.
But I think that people should commonly recognize that all of the socialized countries that are supposed to be so much more just and fair than the US don’t spend money on their own defence; but instead rely on the US directly, or indirectly through the UN, for their national saftey.
Now I may be biased by a lifetime of service, but national security, vis-a-vis a strong military, is not something I’m willing to compromise.
But unfortunately, many of the real dangers to our nation have come from within; especially within the halls of power.
What occurred in the House last night was a complete perversion of the role that body was founded and the intent of our founders. The House of Representatives are supposed to represent the will of their constituents, not decide what is good for them. That they would act in direct opposition to that will, as expressed in myriad poll results, is unconscionable, unethical, immoral, and flies in the face of their constitutional duty and the political traditions of our nation.
[…] LCP at Protein Wisdom […]
24. There was about 15 posters here over the past x amount of years that raised material objections to the blatantly preposterous ways in which Bush executed his budget. For what its worth, you are one of the one’s I recall as being vocal on the matter. In all of the other right of center blogs I visited, there were even less. That’s my point. Too often, the GOP and affiliated commentators and bloggers do not hold the Right to account for its complicity in terrible spending decisions. that’s politics I suppose.
B Moe: Correct as far as it goes, and the answer is clear enough, no? But I think we both understand that much of Bush’s spending isn’t going to return a dime to taxpayers in any form. As far as Obama, well, he’s becoming a punchline.
27. Touche. See below.
28. I accept that criticism. Guilty as charged.
I’m not sure if we truly won the cold war, or if the Soviets simply lost first and we’re working very hard to lose next, leaving the likes of China still in the game.
I’m not entirely certain that Reagan and Bush I or II fought in any fashion to materially cut spending or reign in entitlements.
How do you persuade people to give up their “entitlements” (what a disgusting term!) during relative prosperity?
Answer: You don’t. The only thing that will shake us loose from our addiction is economic collapse, when the gubmint will be forced to stop because it will have cleaned out its stash and the stashes of everyone else on the planet.
For Bush, agreed, I was opposed to most of his domestic spending. I was referring more to the comments about Reagan. While I was rabidly opposed to the man while he was in office, in hindsight he seems to have made some fairly shrewd economic moves.
And remember that Reagan was also working with a Democrat House, if I recall correctly.
Would chafing at the government interference in personal property rights in the form of ADA count?
Look at this colorful graph. Especially, look at which of those colors has been growing, percentage-wise, over the past decade.
Kinda like all that WWII spending.
Part of our overall problem is that even our most “radical” advocates are reduced to fighting over the size of government in relation to the nation (gov spending as a % of GDP, or gov employees as % of total employees, or similar metrics). Very few are trying to shrink its absolute size and the scope of its accepted actions.
#42 bh:
So long as the federal budget is created with a formula of “last year plus X percent, it will never come down. Try to freeze the rate of increase of the rate of increase of the rate of increase, and the government will retaliate by closing the Washington Monument, or some such stunt. While continuing to boot cars illegally parked near it.
Comment by bh on 3/22 @ 2:20 pm
Exactly. Short term band-aids are only going to make it worse, which is what the Progressives are banking on. It we are going totalitarian, it is best to go all the way. What we need to be thinking about now is a long term strategy to do to them what they did to us, to get the country back to individualism, personal responsibility, and personal freedom.
Either that or start busting fucking heads. There is no clean and simple solution to this mess.
Either that or start busting fucking heads. There is no clean and simple solution to this mess.
The forces loose in our land have neither soul to damn, nor ass to kick.
Part of our overall problem is that even our most “radical” advocates are reduced to fighting over the size of government in relation to the nation
That’s what Mark Steyn calls “the ratchet effect” of government growth. Always forward, never back.
That’s gotta change. Make it so.
IBD: “20 Ways Obamacare Will Take Away Our Freedoms.”
37. I kinda agree.
41. Not so sure of that, Mark. Whole lotta that spending helped level our natural economic rivals Germany and Japan, after the Germany laid waste to England and the Soviet bloc. We were given the gretest head start in economic history, or, more coldly, benefitted from the greatest anomalous displacement ever. As late as the mid 50s, UN sorts were working mightily to get power consistently to certain mid-sized German cities. Once that got squared away, our advantage began to fritter away. Our moral advantage remains, in various ways, to this day.
42. BH: superior comment, really.
He’s a reporter, bh.
You were expecting concise?
Sigh.
I wrote some painful checks this morning. Then, I actually mailed them.
Towards helping with the necessary intellectual work or door-to-door footwork, I’m still admittedly lacking. Getting rid of David Obey to my north seems like a good place to start on that front.
Mathematics are what we make them, Squid.
I’ll bet you that if we had chinz curtains, people wouldn’t run around calling places like this, “places like this.”
repeal its not just for hcr anymore: epa, doe, tva, doed, hhs, cia, osha, batf
take a meat ax to the fed gov’t
The poster boy for exactly, precisely what all those “Blue Dogs” are “staunch”[ly] for.
Are you opining that our intent was to merely level our economic competitors in WWII? We could have done that a lot cheaper; I think you could look at how we handled WWI for starters.
Too bad we didn’t stick with the Morgenthau Plan, eh?
Hegel is not the problem. The way others used Hegel is the problem.
I believe that that IS part of the plan.
Is Hegel a useful guide then, do you think RTO?
It’s weird, because I’ve heard the exact same thing said of Χ were we to substitute Χ for Hegel in those sentences.
Allow me, newrouter. I bet each one of those fuckers costs more than I make in a year.
I just realized that the initials for the Democratic Party are also the name of a very invasive sexual practice….very fitting
mcgruder,
Too often, the GOP and affiliated commentators and bloggers do not hold the Right to account for its complicity in terrible spending decisions. that’s politics I suppose.
To this extent, we’re in agreement. This also dovetails nicely with Jeff’s complaints about being marginalized by both sides of the debate.
As somebody else noted, we’re given the choice between a month of anal rape and a week of anal rape, and it seems neither side wants to hear from those of us in the “no anal rape at all, thanks” party.
Sure. I’ve always been all about “compassionate conservatism.” Loved the spending. Cheered for it!
Oh. And the subsidies, too. Big fan.
The few liberal friends I have basically say the following : “13 million die from lack of health care every year. Now they won’t die.”
And that’s as far as their thinking goes.
if only 13 million poor, uninsured, liberals died per year.
That’s just wishful thinking.
A little trick I learned Charles, is after I type something in the box, I always reread it. And if it doesn’t make any sense, or seems kind of stupid, I say to myself, “Wow, I probably might ought to not put that out where other people can see it,” and I don’t click on that little [Say It!] button for that comment.
Just a thing I do, you see.
More Mobying from Charles, the “principled conservative”…
35.Comment by Charles on 3/22 @ 2:12 pm #
Sorry about winning the Cold War. It won’t happen again.
I’m not sure if we truly won the cold war, or if the Soviets simply lost first and we’re working very hard to lose next, leaving the likes of China still in the game.
Even the former KGB said we did.
I just got an email from John McCain saying I need to help him repeal this. Gawd, I wish they didn’t treat me like we’re all idiots. Seriously, John, how the hell do you think you’re going to get the majorities needed to override a veto?
I afraid I won’t be sending you a check right away.
Yes, Charles. John should have known the kind of engaged, fatalist sophisticate he was dealing with when he sent out his fucking form letter by email dump.
Charles, The Russkies–rank and file–are happy we won. Good enough for them=Good enough for
Mcgruder. You too, I’d think.
Mark, our intent was to (naturally) defeat our sworn enemies. It was an ahistorical byproduct of that period that we managed to recoup all of our outlays—anomalous themselves since we took a market-based economy and turned it into a Soviet command-control replica–plus some in winding up the world’s most profitable economy.
In short, I take your points but dont buy into them. The Cold war, WoT and WWII are economically different animals.
No. It’s the illusion that you’re either bright or interesting.
Pretty soon people will begin ignoring your comments entirely. At first you’ll try to escalate — because it’s all about Charles and Charles getting attention for Charles — but eventually you’ll either go away or be shown the door.
We’ve seen it before.
Trust someone who’s been doing this for 8 years: you aren’t new and you aren’t unique. In fact, you’re an internet cliche.
lol
That isn’t cynical Charles, that’s just you missing that fine line between clever and stupid again.. He is running for re-election, people running for re-election send out form letters asking for contributions. Happens all the time.
Trust me on this.
Used cautiously and for appropriate purposes, yes.
Without Hegel, my own field of study, history, would not be what it is today. I susbscribe to a Hegelian view myself, that history tends to be the interplay between two opposing forces, where Marx inappropriately said that these forces were economic, I say they are intellectual (“The real is rational”), specifically between Romance and Rational thought, or more coarsely, between Emotion and Logic. Marx also, in contradiction to Hegel, said that one force would ultimately triumph over the other. I, like Hegel, continually look for the next counter-revolution.
It’s my hope that what I see today is the seed of a new Enlightenment period.
counter-revolution!
73.Comment by Charles on 3/22 @ 4:31 pm #
Gawd, I wish they didn’t treat me like we’re all idiots.
Nope. Just you.
Though I’m reasonably ignorant of Hegel’s wider writings RTO, my encounters with him make me think him a bit too much a man of system — his system — for my taste to lightly entrust our guidance to his thought. Still, I could easily be wrong: he may have the merit you suggest.
Standing in their minority position, yet possessed with authority, our Democrat legislators and President have certainly slapped the master-slave conflict full in our faces: they will be masters and we will be slaves. And who can doubt that they want the fight? Bring it on, says Mr Axelrod. Bring it on, says the monochrome blue vote Aye last evening.
As you wish, masters. As you wish.
I loved her in Roswell.
She’s a hottie in almost everything I’ve seen hf.
BMoe: Who is running for re-election? And how do you know?
history tends to be the interplay between two opposing forces
I think it’s cyclical, with various cycles within cycles, having to do with hardship, which makes the civ tough, and if it’s lucky, there’s a critical mass of people who can make the civ grow and advance.
Then they get wealthy and lazy and soft, and the next tough civ comes in and either conquers them outright or beats some sense into them.
Guess where we are in the cycle?
You’re far from alone in that. and that’s precisely what Whittle alludes to. The Cycle of Civilizations was part of a warning to America from Scottish professor Alex Tyler in 1787. He said we’d have about 200 years before descending into dependence and then bondage. Whittle, and Hegel, and I, say it doesn’t have to be like that.
Then again, Hegel can be looked at as cyclical as well–using my own view cycling from Rational to Romance thinking as themes in history, the Enlightenment and our founding be one such and currently deep in a Romance period.
It won’t surprise me to learn that our host has no great love for Hegel. Pierce and Royce didn’t care for him either.