“Budget Hawk” Republicans Will Raise the Deficit by Cutting Taxes and Repealing Health Care Reform
The new Republican House of Representatives is opened for business, and I do mean business.
Of course, we could start with the new rules imposed by the Republican majority. They’re starting off with their sincere pledge to reign in the deficit. Well, “reign” might not be exactly the word. How about reign in stuff the other guy wants to add to the deficit, not the Republican stuff. So the Republicans vote in rules that require any spending increase to be offset by cuts elsewhere. Cuts specifically. This is not pay-go. The new rules do not allow the House to raise revenue to offset spending. Only cuts will do for every spending increase.
Well, not every spending increase. Spending increases as a result of tax cuts is exempt. Imagine that. The costs associated with repealing “Obamacare” are also exempt.
Wait! I thought the Republican argument was that Obamacare was too expensive, that we had to repeal it to save the budget. If that is true why did they make it a point to exempt the “costs” of repeal? They did it because they know that they are scamming the American people.
Today, the Congressional Budget Office sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner with preliminary estimates¹ on the costs of repealing “Obamacare.” According to the CBO, “H.R. 2 would probably increase federal budget deficits over the 20122019 period by a total of roughly $145 billion.” Of course, Boehner must have suspected as much.
What’s more, the CBO estimates that H.R. 2 will leave 52 million Americans uninsured. But, hey! We have to tighten our belts. It’s all about austerity. Now let’s pass some tax breaks for the wealthy.
The CBO does estimate that premiums under H.R. 2 would be slightly lower than under Obamacare, but these costs would be offset by overall increases in the costs of health-care and the elimination of subsidies provided in the insurance exchanges that would disappear under Boehner’s beloved legislation. And if you happen to work for a large company, the CBO predicts that your premiums will go up.
So there we have it. The rules are rigged so that working people will get no help, at least not without losing help in another area. In the meantime, Republicans will raise the deficit with their ideological tunnel vision. Cut taxes and repeal Obamacare is the Republican mantra. A mantra that will cost us.
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- Estimates in the CBO letter are general estimates as the CBO has not completed its full analysis. The figures will, most certainly, vary from those given here in the final analysis.
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