Step right up: A new entitlement that cuts the deficit!
Washington spent the week waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to roll in with its new cost estimates of the Senate health-care bill, and what a carnival. Behold: a new $829 billion entitlement that will subsidize insurance for tens of millions of people—and reduce deficits by $81 billion at the same time. In the next tent, see the mermaid and a two-headed cow.
The political and media classes are proving they'll believe anything, as they are now pronouncing that this never-before-seen miracle is a "green light" for ObamaCare. (What isn't these days?) The irony is that the CBO's guesstimate exposes the fraudulence and fiscal sleight-of-hand underlying this whole exercise. Anyone who reads beyond the top-line numbers will find that the bill creates massive new spending commitments that will inevitably explode over time, and that this is "paid for" with huge tax increases plus phantom spending cuts that will never happen in practice.
The better part of the 10-year $829 billion overall cost will finance insurance "exchanges" where individuals and families could purchase coverage at heavily subsidized rates. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus kept a lid on the cost by making this program non-universal: Enrollment is limited to those who aren't offered employer-sponsored insurance and earn under 400% of the poverty level, or about $88,000 for a family of four. CBO expects some 23 million people to sign up by 2019.
But this "firewall" is unlikely to last even that long. Liberals are demanding heftier subsidies, and once people see the deal their neighbors are getting on "free" health care, they too will want in. Even CBO seems to find this unrealistic, noting "These projections assume that the proposals are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation." Scratch "often."
Then there are the many budget gimmicks. Take the "failsafe budgeting mechanism" that would require automatic cuts in exchange spending if it increases the deficit. CBO expects 15% reductions in exchange subsidies each year from 2015 to 2018, even though the exchanges don't open until 2014. That kind of re-gifting should have been laughed out of the committee room, but the ruse helps to move future spending off the current budget "score."
Mr. Baucus spends $10.9 billion to eliminate the scheduled Medicare cuts to physician payments—but only for next year. In 2011, he assumes they'll be reduced by 25%, with even deeper cuts later. Congress has overridden this "sustainable growth rate" every year since 2003 and will continue to do so because deeper cuts in Medicare's price controls will cause many doctors to quit the program. Fixing this alone would add $245 billion to the bill's costs, according to an earlier CBO estimate.
The Baucus bill also expands ailing Medicaid by $345 billion—even as it busts state budgets by imposing an additional $33 billion unfunded mandate. The only Medicare cut that isn't made merely on paper is $117 billion in Medicare Advantage, which Democrats hate because it gives one of five seniors private insurance options.
Recall that when President Obama started the health-care debate, the goal was "bending the curve"—finding a way to reduce both Medicare and overall health spending. Budget director Peter Orszag talked about "game changers," which CBO has now outed as nonchangers. Comparative effectiveness research about what treatments work best? That will save all of $300 million in Medicare, even as it costs $2.6 billion in new taxes on premiums. More prevention and primary care will increase spending by $4.2 billion.
Meanwhile, the bill piles on new taxes, albeit on health-care businesses so the costs are hidden from customers. Insurance companies offering policies that cost more than $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families will pay $201 billion per a 40% excise tax, which will be passed down to all policy holders in higher premiums. Another $180 billion will hit the likes of drug and device makers, including $29 billion because companies won't be allowed to deduct these "fees" from their corporate income taxes. Then there's the $4 billion in penalty payments on those who don't buy insurance because all of ObamaCare's other new taxes and mandates have made it more expensive.
Senate Finance votes next week, and no doubt this freak of political nature will pass amid fanfare and self-congratulation that their new entitlement will reduce deficits. Never mind that such a spectacle has never happened in the history of the republic. P.T. Barnum had nothing on this crowd, and the bill hasn't even hit the Senate floor yet.
#6
The Register is a techie/libertarian news site, Ptah. Think of them as slashdot's meaner, more traditionally-organized, English cousins. Or maybe Wired less the hipster-douchebaggery.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
10/09/2009 9:15 Comments ||
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#7
The Register is a legit site and has been for ages.
#10
We've long track the morphing of 20th Century 'Reds' to 21st Century 'Greens'. Does it surprise anyone that those who promoted 'thou shall covet' and 'thou shall steal' should be angels? /rhet question.
I just went to this link and, in the "Type your nominee here!" field, entered "Barack Obama." The winner of this Nissan-sponsored promotion will actually receive one official vote for the Heisman award as sort of the people's choice.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/09/2009 14:19 ||
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Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/09/2009 18:03 Comments ||
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#5
Wow, the HEISMAN, but doesn't this mean Bammer should've joined PENN STATE'S football team back in theday - you know, along wid ANNA NICOLE SMITH + ABU MUSAB ZARQHAWI, ETAL-L-L-L.
Richard Cohen, "Post Partisan" blog @ Washington Post
n a stunning announcement, Millard Fillmore Senior High School chose Shawn Rabinowitz, an incoming junior, as next year's valedictorian. The award was made, the valedictorian committee announced from Norway of all places, on the basis of "Mr. Rabinowitz's intention to ace every course and graduate number one in class." In a prepared statement, young Shawn called the unprecedented award, "f---ing awesome."... (Contractually-required unfunny cheap shot at Sarah Palin omitted)
And again in a stunning coincidence, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences announced the Oscar for best picture will be given this year to the Vince Vaughn vehicle Guys Weekend to Burp, which is being story-boarded at the moment but looks very good indeed. Mr. Vaughn, speaking through his publicist, said was "touched and moved" by the award and would do everything in his power to see that the picture lives up to expectation and opens big sometime next March.
At the same press conferences, the Academy announced that the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award would go this year to Britney Spears for her intention to "spend whatever it takes to save the whales." The Academy recognized that Spears had not yet saved a single whale, but it felt strongly that it was the intention that counted most. Spears, who was leaving a club at the time, told People magazine that she would not want to live in "a world without whales." People put it on the cover.
The sudden spate of awards based on intentions or plans or aspirations was attributed to the decision by the Norwegian Nobel committee to award the peace prize to Barack Obama for his efforts in nuclear disarmament and his outreach to the Muslim world. . . . Some cynics suggested that Obama's award was a bit premature since, among other things, a Middle East peace was as far away as ever and the world had yet to fully disarm. Nonetheless, the president seemed humbled by the news and the Norwegian committee packed for its trip to the United States, where it will appear on Dancing with the Stars. As evidenced by the gratuitous, contractually-required, and terminally unfunny cheap shot at Sarah Palin in this blog posting (which I deleted out of mercy for you, the reader) and the overall body of his work, Cohen is a dead-conventional knee-jerk runs-with-the-herd-of-independent-minds in-the-tank-for-the-Dems Beltway liberal. It would seem significant that his first reaction to the Nobel award is to scathingly mock it.
At first I thought the announcement of the prize was a joke. On further reflection, the Noble Committee has made itself a joke. It has decided to give a ribbon before the race, a trophy for aspiration, a gold star for admirable sentiments. Which means that the decision it made is entirely, purely, solely political. Members of the committee like Obama's goals and rhetoric. And since they aren't American citizens, this is the only way they could vote for him. In the process, they have forfeited any claim to seriousness. Peace -- the kind of peace that keeps people from being killed and oppressed -- is an achievement, not a sentiment. The Noble Peace Prize Committee can no longer distinguish between the two.
Intending to honor Obama, the committee has actually embarrassed him. Europe's slobbering embrace of Obama is really the worship of its own reflected image -- both are critical of America and elevate diplomatic process and promises over outcomes. Americans prefer their honors to come with achievements.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/09/2009 09:29 ||
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#1
I'll bet Michelle nominated him. A million bucks will buy a lot of organic arugula.
#2
A couple of thoughts:
* Richard Cohen mocking this award to Bambi is almost as mind boggling as the Nobel Committee's decision to award it to the ONE.
** This is simply further evidence of the ongoing social trend of giving awards/grades/trophies/etc. to people simply for showing up and/or expressing an idea or thought, however original or not.
#4
As President, I don't see how he can accept the prize. it seems to me that the medal and the cash are property of the state, since both are worth more than nomimal value. So, the United States has gotten a Nobel Peace Prize, long overdue in my opinion.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
10/09/2009 13:04 Comments ||
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#5
Richard, there is precedent for a sitting President to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Teddy Roosevelt won for negotiating an end to the Russian-Japanese War, and Woodrow Wilson for helping to end WWI and starting the League of Nations.
A quick Google search didn't explain what happened to the money for the prize - whether Roosevelt and Wilson were able to keep the money or if it became the property of the US.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
10/09/2009 18:09 Comments ||
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#6
he's already promised to give the cash to a charity: "Acorm or SEIYou or something" - it was kinda vague
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/09/2009 19:33 Comments ||
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#7
You saw the piece on Eugene Volokh's blog, Rambler?
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
10/09/2009 22:25 Comments ||
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On Oct. 8, a suicide bomber killed 17 people and wounded at least 63 in Kabul, outside the Indian embassy, by detonating a sport utility vehicle packed with explosives. Indian authorities believe the blast was directed against their compound. A Taliban spokesman has claimed responsibility for the incident and has confirmed that the group's target was New Delhi's mission.
The mission was also the target of a bombing in July 2008. Then, two senior Indian diplomats were killed along with 56 others in what has been described as the Afghan war's deadliest attack in Kabul.
The Taliban--or, more precisely, Taliban-linked militants--also carried out the 2008 bombing, specifically a group led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose refuge is western Pakistan. The New York Times reports that he has had both "a long and complicated relationship" with the Central Intelligence Agency and "strained relations" with the Pakistani Taliban. Both Indian and American authorities believe Pakistan's Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, better known as ISI, had worked with the Taliban to pull off last year's terrorist attack in the Afghan capital. Islamabad denied it had anything to do with the bombing, but Washington has intercepts proving otherwise.
The ISI has been linked to a series of terrorist attacks against India, so why does Washington continue substantial support for Islamabad? The rationale, at its most basic level, is that we need to maintain ties with the Pakistanis to keep up influence and to help moderate elements control the government so that they can rid their nation of extremists. Support for this view came from CNN's Peter Bergen, who reported on Thursday that there has been a fundamental shift in popular opinion in the country.
The tipping point, as the well-known analyst noted, was the Taliban's decision earlier this year to move from the Swat Valley into the Buner District, only 60 miles from the Pakistani capital. By doing so, it caused the public to view the militants as real threats. And as a result of this new appreciation of risk, the Pakistani army's sweep to regain the areas was perceived as being in the national interest, not merely as a move to placate Washington, as earlier operations had been. "In fact, arguably not since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 have American strategic interests and Pakistani strategic interests been so closely aligned," writes Bergen.
If he is right--and from all indications he is--this would seem to be a particularly inappropriate time for Washington to change its policies toward Pakistan. Yet in the past those policies have retarded needed change by helping the wrong elements in the Pakistani government. Today, American policies remain, to say the least, tactically counterproductive and morally questionable.
For one thing, Washington provides billions in assistance to the Pakistani military in the hopes that it will fight extremists. The generals there make half-hearted efforts to do so every so often--to great fanfare--but their forays into tribal areas seem to have little lasting effect. Why? For one thing, the Pakistani army finds the presence of the militants in their country useful to keep aid dollars flowing from Washington.
And where have those aid dollars gone? It appears that only a small portion of Washington's cash has ended up helping soldiers fighting insurgents. Two U.S. Army generals, who talked to the Associated Press anonymously, maintained that all but $500 million of $6.6 billion in military assistance from 2002 to 2008 was actually diverted to civilian uses and to fighting India. Mahmud Durrani, a former Pakistani general and a past ambassador to Washington during the era of strongman Pervez Musharraf, backs up the charge. "The army itself got very little," he said. "The military was financing the war on terror out of its own budget."
Some even believe Islamabad has used a portion of American aid to fund its nuclear weapons program. Although there is no proof of that, it is clear the government has been rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal recently. And in a larger sense, the charge must be true because all material aid is fungible. We fear Pakistan's nukes in large measure because we think they may fall into the hands of terrorists, who appear to command the loyalties of critical personnel in the country's military and intelligence services. So we are, in the final analysis, helping the Pakistanis build the instruments of destruction we find so threatening. Over the course of decades, we have made compromise after compromise to fix the problem of the moment in Pakistan and, over the long run, have helped create a truly horrible situation.
Recent efforts to prevent the diversion of American assistance have caused friction in the Pakistani capital. A few of Washington's conditions on aid may be unnecessarily onerous, but the Pakistani army is complaining about safeguards intended to make sure the aid is used for intended purposes. For instance, the generals are enraged that Washington wants to make sure they fight insurgents in Quetta, a Taliban base, and anti-Indian terrorists in Muridke.
Pakistani generals have all the right in the world to refuse to do so. But that does not mean we have to continue to fund them. So here's a radical idea: Instead of sending Pakistan $700 million to fight insurgents--something we plan to do next year--let's spend the funds on our forces, which by the look of things could use additional resources.
And, in any event, it's time we stop funding terrorism against India. The United States, through its assistance programs, effectively enabled Pakistan's ISI to mastermind the Indian embassy bombing last July, and it's almost certain our money was used for the attack this week. At some point, we have to accept responsibility for the consequences of our decisions.
We can fight terrorism or we can support the Pakistani military. History says we cannot do both.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China. He writes a weekly column for Forbes.
Posted by: john frum ||
10/09/2009 08:28 ||
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They both hung out with anti-Semites who think Israel should be pushed into the sea.
Oh, yeah--and they both were given the Nobel Prize for Peace.
A prize President Obama earned, the Nobel Committee claims, for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples"
This will no doubt come as great comfort to the democracy protesters in Iran, the oppressed citizens of North Korea, the Afghan women being beaten by the Taliban, and the people of Poland, the Czech Republic, Georgia, etc., feeling the hot breath of the growling Russian bear. They're all basking in that Obama-inspired "peace."... Go read the rest--it's scathing.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/09/2009 08:28 ||
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#1
This might really convince the Israelis that Obama who would be very sensitive to mocking the award, will not take aggressive action against Iran.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
