Redux -TeamObama Must Believe We Are Both Gullible and Stupid

In an earlier post, I argued that the numbers floated out of the Congressional Budget Office and ever-so-dutifully reported by the media were impossible to believe and just plain wrong. I obviously had no detailed analysis at my disposal to cite the specifics, but a former CBO director, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, has since done just that with far more realistic and believable results...a defict of $562 billion

His analysis is far more plausible than the garbage floated by the the CBO last week. I urge you to read the rest of the story from someone who has taken the time to expose the facts and gimmicks that make TeamObama's deficit-reduction claim for this 'reform' patently false.

"...The answer, unfortunately, is that the budget office is required to take written legislation at face value and not second-guess the plausibility of what it is handed. So fantasy in, fantasy out.

In reality, if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games and rework the calculus, a wholly different picture emerges: The health care reform legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits, by $562 billion.

Gimmick No. 1 is the way the bill front-loads revenues and backloads spending. That is, the taxes and fees it calls for are set to begin immediately, but its new subsidies would be deferred so that the first 10 years of revenue would be used to pay for only 6 years of spending.

Even worse, some costs are left out entirely. To operate the new programs over the first 10 years, future Congresses would need to vote for $114 billion in additional annual spending. But this so-called discretionary spending is excluded from the Congressional Budget Office’s tabulation..."