Now we're talking!

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by scottw

Krauthammer has a great article today Obamacare must go

"dems have a strange way of reducing the deficit"

Suppose someone — say, the president of the United States — proposed the following: We are drowning in debt. More than $14 trillion right now. I’ve got a great idea for deficit reduction. It will yield savings of $230 billion over the next 10 years: We increase spending by $540 billion while we increase taxes by $770 billion.

He’d be laughed out of town. And yet, this is precisely what the Democrats are claiming as a virtue of Obamacare. During the debate over Republican attempts to repeal it, one of the Democrats’ major talking points has been that Obamacare reduces the deficit — and therefore its repeal raises it — by $230 billion. Why, the Congressional Budget Office says exactly that.

Very true, and very convincing. Until you realize where that number comes from. CBO director Douglas Elmendorf explains in his “preliminary analysis of H.R. 2” (the Republican health-care repeal): “CBO anticipates that enacting H.R. 2 would probably yield, for the 2012-2021 period, a reduction in revenues in the neighborhood of $770 billion and a reduction in outlays in the vicinity of $540 billion.”

As National Affairs editor Yuval Levin pointed out when mining this remarkable nugget, this is a hell of a way to do deficit reduction: a radical increase in spending, topped by an even more radical increase in new taxes.

Why Everything Starts with Repeal - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online

Krauthammer is a genius. He's a atsunch conservative, obviously, but the man provides irrefutable fact to support his conclusions.

To the liberals here...if Obamacare only reduces the deficit by $230 billion because it raises taxes by $230 billion more than the plan costs, how is that a good thing?

The liberals will respond by calling Krauthammer a neocon, pro-Israel hack. They will not respond directly to his points, mind you, because they know they can't, they know that all of the facts and every speck of common sense are on his side. But they will attack him personally, like they always do.

I love Dr Krauthammer. He lays out the facts, and tells why what they are obviously suggesting.

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Krauthammer is a genius. He's a atsunch conservative, obviously, but the man provides irrefutable fact to support his conclusion.
I love Dr Krauthammer. He lays out the facts, and tells why what they are obviously suggesting.

Yes, a man of extreme intelligence, highly educated, and having the rare
common sense not found in most intellectuals.

[scottw]

"Last fall at a luncheon announcing her leaving the chairmanship of the Council of Economic Advisors, Christina Romer admitted that she and the council made serious errors in their assumptions, that the stimulus failed and taxes should be cut to stimulate economic growth. However, during her tenure as Obama's chief economist, she faithfully toed the company line and was there to support the policies of the President.

The latest example of this transformative action is Peter Orszag, former Obama Director of the Office of Management and Budget. In that position he oversaw and proposed budgets which averaged deficits of $1.4 Trillion per year. No effort was made to trim or argue against the massive spending spree of the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress.

Yesterday Mr. Orszag wrote an op-ed piece in the Financial Times entitled: "America Must Brace Itself for Turbulence." From the article:

.................................................. ...
At the Federal level the combination of ongoing weakness in the labor market and large structural budget deficits means the right policy mix should be more stimulus now and more deficit reduction, enacted now, to take effect in two to three years. Policymakers have acted on the first part, most prominently through the payroll tax holiday announced in December...


They have not, however, undertaken the harder work needed to reduce projected deficits over the next decade. Most fundamentally it is difficult to see how the medium-term federal deficit can be reduced to sustainable levels without additional tax revenue from those earning less than $250,000.00 a year. [Italics added]


If policymakers will not act before we have a fiscal crisis at the federal level, a fiscal crisis we will have.


Mr. Orszag concludes:


The bottom line is that there may well be US public debt tremors this year, both during federal debate over raising the debt ceiling and with at least a limited number of crises in local and city governments. The bigger problem, though, lies beyond 2011, as the unsustainablity of the federal government's fiscal trajectory becomes increasingly clear. I hope it does not ultimately require a crisis to restore fiscal sustainability at the federal level, but I fear it will. I wonder what that will look like...no more 200 dollar a bottle wine at White House functions?

.................................................. ..
This is a far different from the policies Mr. Orzsag or for that matter Ms. Romer were publicly espousing when they were in thrall to the Obama agenda. If they know now that the fiscal policies of the Obama administration are unsustainable, did they not realize it at the time when they were key architects of these actions?


It is always cathartic to realize the failure of one's actions and intentions; but in this case many millions of Americans are suffering and the prospect of severe economic upheaval in the not too distant future is a near certainty because of these failures."