Before “fixing” health care, maybe Washington should focus on educa tion. Because it looks like no one in Congress ever learned basic math.
How else to explain the Democrats’ boast that ObamaCare will save taxpayers money?
They’re reacting, of course, to the Congressional Budget Office’s declaration that Sen. Max Baucus’ “compromise” health-care bill — which comes in at the bargain-basement price of $829 billion — might reduce the federal deficit.
Too bad the numbers come from books so well-cooked they’d make Julia Child blush.
Under Baucus’ scheme, money from tax hikes starts coming in three years beforecash for benefits starts going out. Which makes it pretty easy for revenue to top spending if you’re looking at the balance sheets through just 2019, which is what the CBO does.
Plus, a “deficit reduction” doesn’t mean “free.” The only way to save on a new government program is to cut other spending — or raise taxes.
And this plan does both, in spades — swiping money from Medicare and imposing huge tax hikes, $200 billion worth, on Americans.
Ironically, the Heritage Foundation figures that, of the folks hit by one of the plan’s steepest tax hikes, more than half fall in the bottom 60 percent of the income scale. So much for helping “working Americans.”
To see just how painful these taxes will be, consider that CBO projects deficits will keep falling even after its 10-year budgeting window — but only because the taxes for the program grow much faster than its benefits.
(When government says your tax bill is going up faster than even it can spend the money, grab your wallet.)
Nor does CBO account for an economy that will react — badly — to ObamaCare’s tax hikes. When the taxes kill off jobs and shrink wages, and with them Uncle Sam’s tax receipts, watch for the plan’s “savings” to dry up fast.
As we’ve said before, the Dems are aiming to create a massive new entitlement program that will tax the life out of the economy — and, according to CBO, still leave 25 million Americans uninsured. Where’s the profit in that?