Storified by Brian Empric· Sat, Mar 30 2013 17:02:02
Since February 2009 when Obama held a so-called Fiscal Responsibility Summit at the White House and our debt was $10.8 trillion, he’s added another $6 trillion to the amount that we and our children will have to repay, while reneging on his commitment back then to take responsibility “right now, in this administration…”
“Let's say your car is on cruise control at 100 miles per hour, and there's a brick wall in the distance. The responsible course of action would be to slow down gradually and turn the car so it's no longer pointed toward the brick wall. But if President Obama were driving the way he conducts fiscal policy, he'd be lowering the speed to 98 miles per hour and continuing on the same trajectory -- simply assuming he'd be able to slam on the brakes right before impact.”
“As with past financial crises, there are always voices warning about the inevitable but others who want to keep dancing until the music stops… There are several problems with waiting for an actual crisis to hit before taking action. To start, it limits the range of options available to lawmakers and results in ugly policy…”
“Emergency measures are likely to be much more disruptive to the economy and to people's lives. As the Congressional Budget Office wrote last month, ‘Deciding now what policy changes to make to resolve that long-term imbalance would allow for gradual implementation, which would give households, businesses, and state and local governments time to plan and adjust their behavior.’ It's also fairer to spread the policy changes among multiple generations, rather than imposing more drastic measures on a future generation.”
“How can anyone take President Obama seriously when he tells us our national debt is no big deal? Well, we have to take him seriously, because, unserious thinking or not, he has serious power, including the power to obstruct progress on reducing the debt.”
“The enormity of our annual interest payments on the debt alone renders Obama's dismissiveness about the debt surreal.”
“House Speaker John Boehner framed the problem quite accurately when he summarized the parties' respective positions. ‘Republicans want to balance the budget. The president doesn't,’ said Boehner. ‘Republicans want to solve our long-term debt problem. The president doesn't. We want to unlock our energy resources to put more Americans back to work. The president doesn't.’”
“Republicans need to launch a 24/7 public campaign blitz explaining Paul Ryan's new budget, which is based on real and specific numbers and proposes to balance the budget in 10 years and make structural changes to our entitlement programs to put them on a sustainable path.
“Democrats and liberal journalists are already out in force, savaging Ryan and the other Republicans -- again -- for their good faith effort to save the nation from a Grecian-style bankruptcy.
“I am convinced that if the Republicans will strike back with as much fervor as Obama constantly hits them and take their winning case to the people, the people will finally learn the truth: that Ryan's plan would not throw seniors or the poor under the bus and is, in fact, their best chance for the future and certainly the best hope currently on the table to restore America's solvency.”
“President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Tom Perez, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, as labor secretary - a job that would give him a key role in the administration's efforts to raise the minimum wage and reform immigration laws.”
“Obama urged the Senate to confirm Perez quickly. He said he would be an integral part of his economic team as the administration works with Congress to try to overhaul immigration laws to give the country's 11 million illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship.”
“Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama called Perez ‘the wrong man for this job’ and criticized him for being too aggressive helping undocumented immigrants find work as part of an advocacy group called Casa de Maryland.”
“Senator David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana, said he would block Perez's nomination until the Justice Department answered questions about enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act in his state.
“Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was concerned about Perez's role in persuading the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, to withdraw a Fair Housing Act case from the U.S. Supreme Court last year.”
“No matter what progress Republicans may make in electoral politics over the coming years, it will be difficult to roll back the steady march of liberalism that has taken place inside our cultural, bureaucratic and legal institutions -- from academia to regulatory agencies to the Department of Justice -- but we have to try.”
“Radical liberals are characteristically activists, strategists and organizers. Their plan to infiltrate and dominate academia was hardly spontaneous, and its effects have hardly been sporadic… The same phenomenon occurs throughout the nation's regulatory bureaucracies. Liberals have managed to place so many ideologically charged people inside powerful administrative agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, that these institutions tend to be radicalized from the bottom up.”
“They don't have the same reverence for the Constitution and the rule of law as conservatives. They view things through an ideological prism and act in deference to their ideology and their political ends more than their conservative counterparts. They see themselves as activist agents for change, as crusaders with the lofty goal of advancing an agenda so morally superior that they don't think twice about bending and twisting rules and selectively interpreting laws and regulations to serve their agenda.”
“We have to do a better job of exposing radicals and preventing them from overthrowing our constitutional guarantees from inside our government…”
“He’s done it with a package of tools, some of which date to George Washington and some invented in the modern era of an increasingly powerful presidency. And he’s done it with a frequency that belies his original campaign criticisms of predecessor George W. Bush, invites criticisms that he’s bypassing the checks and balances of Congress and the courts, and whets the appetite of liberal activists who want him to do even more to advance their goals.”
“Arguably more than any other president in modern history, he’s using executive actions, primarily orders, to bypass or pressure a Congress where the opposition Republicans can block any proposal.”
“Presidents since George Washington have signed executive orders, an oft-overlooked power not explicitly defined in the Constitution. More than half of all executive orders in the nation’s history – nearly 14,000 – have been issued since 1933.”
“Most presidents in recent history generally have issued a few hundred orders, and hundreds more memorandums and directives… But, experts say, Obama’s actions are more noticeable because as a candidate he was critical of Bush’s use of power. In particular, he singled out his predecessor’s use of signing statements, documents issued when a president signs a bill that clarifies his understanding of the law.”
“In his first two years in the White House, when fellow Democrats controlled Capitol Hill, Obama largely worked through the regular legislative process to try to achieve his domestic agenda. His biggest achievements – including a federal health care overhaul and a stimulus package designed to boost the economy –came about with little or no Republican support.
“But Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2010, making the task of passing legislation all the more difficult for a man with a detached personality who doesn’t relish schmoozing with lawmakers…”
“’The president looks more and more like a king that the Constitution was designed to replace,’ Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said on the Senate floor last year.”
“The plagiarist with the slow-grow hair plugs and the chipmunk fake teeth and the made-up stories about heroics on the football field who quietly won five student draft deferments during the Vietnam War really did become vice president…”
“[W]underboy Joey, despite his hardscrabble Scranton roots and spectacular work ethic (he did hold an actual job for some 18 months before going on the government dole 43 years ago) will not grow up to be the president of the United States. He’s already tried twice, in 1988 and again in 2008 (the latter after giving voters a full generation to forget why they didn’t like him the first time around).”
“The chatter started right around the time then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton got sick, fell down, bumped her head and disappeared for six weeks… Suddenly, all this talk swirled that Joey was going to run in 2016, you know, pick up the mantle of his mental mentor and try to see if he could top the $10 trillion in debt his boss is on pace to rack up…”
“At 70 years old, the Gaffe Machine won’t have time to wait another 20 years so America can forget all the stupid things he says and does…”
“This week brings more to pile onto the horror that the working-man’s vice president charges rent to the Secret Service to use a cottage adjacent to his waterfront home in Wilmington, Del. He and his entourage spent $460,000 for a single night in London earlier this year. And they spent another $585,000 for a night at a five-star hotel in Paris. The stays came amid the crisis in Washington over the budget.
“What’s more, he flies to Delaware nearly every weekend — first from his taxpayer-funded home in Washington on a chopper to an Air Force base, then on Air Force Two. The weekly jaunts have cost Americans more than $4 million so far (according to an article on the Newsmax website).”
Storified by Brian Empric· Wed, Mar 27 2013 19:14:47
“Since 1974, Capitol Hill's ‘baseline’ has automatically increased spending every year according to Congressional Budget Office projections, which means before anyone has submitted a budget or cast a single vote. Tax and spending changes are then measured off that inflated baseline, not in absolute terms.”
“The baseline scam also exists in many states, and no less a Democrat than New York Governor Andrew Cuomo denounced it in 2011 as a ‘sham’ and ‘deceptive.’ He wrote in the New York Post that state spending was ‘dictated by hundreds of rates and formulas that are marbleized throughout New York State laws that govern different programs—formulas that have been built into the law over decades, without regard to fiscal realities, performance or accountability.’ Then he proceeded to continue baseline budgeting.”
“In Washington, Democrats designed this system to make it easier to defend annual spending increases and to portray any reduction in the baseline as a spending ‘cut’… Republicans used to object to this game, but in recent years they seem to have given up…”
“If Republicans really want to slow the growth in spending, they need to stop playing by Beltway rules and start explaining to America why Mr. Obama keeps saying he's cutting spending even as spending and deficits keep going up and up and up.”
“Clearly, the budget process is broken. In four of the past five years, the president has missed his budget deadline. Senate Democrats haven't passed a budget in over 1,400 days. By refusing to tackle the drivers of the nation's debt—or simply to write a budget—Washington lurches from crisis to crisis.
“House Republicans have a plan to change course… We stop spending money the government doesn't have. Historically, Americans have paid a little less than one-fifth of their income in taxes to the federal government each year. But the government has spent more.”
“Under our proposal, the government spends no more than it collects in revenue—or 19.1% of gross domestic product each year… On the current path, we'll spend $46 trillion over the next 10 years. Under our proposal, we'll spend $41 trillion. On the current path, spending will increase by 5% each year. Under our proposal, it will increase by 3.4%...”
“Yet the most important question isn't how we balance the budget. It's why. A budget is a means to an end, and the end isn't a neat and tidy spreadsheet. It's the well-being of all Americans. By giving families stability and protecting them from tax hikes, our budget will promote a healthier economy and help create jobs. Most important, our budget will reignite the American Dream, the idea that anyone can make it in this country.”
“The other side will warn of a relapse into recession—just as they predicted economic disaster when the budget sequester hit. But a balanced budget will help the economy. Smaller deficits will keep interest rates low, which will help small businesses to expand and hire…”
“Anyone who attacks our Medicare proposal without offering a credible alternative is complicit in the program's demise.”
“All we need is leadership. Washington owes the American people a balanced budget. It isn't fair to take more from families so government can spend more… We House Republicans have done our part. We're offering a credible plan for all the country to see. We're outlining how to solve the greatest problems facing America today.”
“A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 35% of Likely U.S. Voters favor the Republican plan proposed by Congressman Paul Ryan. Half (49%) of all voters oppose the Republican plan, but another 16% are not sure…”
“However, only 19% favor the Democrats' option proposed by Senator Patty Murray. Sixty percent (60%) of voters oppose the Democratic plan. Twenty-one percent (21%) are not sure…”
“Sixty-three percent (63%) of Republicans agree with the plan that balances the budget in 10 years without raising taxes. Seventy percent (70%) of Democrats and a plurality (49%) of voters not affiliated with either party are opposed.
“However, only 26% of Democrats support their party’s plan while 40% are opposed. Eighty percent (80%) of Republicans and 64% of unaffiliated voters oppose the plan.”
“Seventy-two percent (72%) of Tea Party voters favor the GOP plan, and 89% oppose the Democratic plan.”
“What in the world is going through the minds of European officials with their crazy, destructive demands with Cyprus? Seizing a portion of peoples’ bank deposits is the kind of thing one would expect from Argentina or other kleptocratic third-world governments. It sets an awful precedent shredding the rule of law, which is the bedrock of a free and vibrant society…”
“What the Europeans are doing here guarantees that there will be disastrous runs on banks and money market funds when we have another financial crisis – which we will, since authorities today really don’t know what they are doing on the economic front…”
“The Cyprus move is portrayed as a way to recapitalize that island’s shaky banks. But stealing deposits guarantees banks’ failures as soon as their doors re-open – if they ever do. After all, the Cypriot government may reject their agreement with the European Commission, European Central Bank and the IMF out of fear of both apoplectic voters and angry Russian depositors. Make no mistake, this deal is about as voluntary as those famous gangster words, ‘We have an offer you can’t refuse.’”
“The poor judgment of the political and economical leadership of the West today rivals that of their predecessors of the 1930s and 1970s. Under their misguided policies the wealth-creating private sector is continually squeezed with growth-killing taxes and regulations and the power of Big Government expands. Most countries have made, at best, small reforms when big ones – especially on the tax cutting front – are needed.”
“[I]f Republicans plan to place entitlements in their cross hairs, they will be risking a high-profile and explosive fight with President Barack Obama, who has said there is no way he’ll consider changes to entitlement programs without corresponding tax increases. House Republicans have said they compromised on raising tax hikes in the fiscal cliff deal on Jan. 1.”
“House GOP leadership is also eyeing several bills to hike the debt cap with different budgetary reforms — those bills might hit the floor as soon as May. One option under discussion includes trying to tie tax reform to the debt ceiling. Republicans are also mulling another path, which would tether entitlement reforms Obama has previously supported to the debt ceiling. Those reforms include increasing the Medicare eligibility age, means testing Medicare and changing the formula for calculating government benefits.”
“Of course, the House is not alone in deciding how the debt ceiling issue is resolved… Obama has said he’s not interested in negotiating over the debt ceiling, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) still has control over his chamber. Reid’s strategy often lines up with Obama’s.”
“The House-side maneuvering on the debt ceiling also plainly displays that the talk of a grand bargain, for now, is just that: talk. The ability to come to some sort of massive fiscal deal is still a pipe dream, of sorts, for those who deal with the reality of legislating on Capitol Hill.”
“This legislation would not only result in the termination of current tax delinquent federal employees, but would prohibit the future hiring of federal employees with tax liens.”
“The legislation also requires federal agencies to conduct reviews of public records to determine if tax liens have been filed against current employees or applicants.”
“Nearly 312,000 federal workers and retirees owed more than $3.5 billion in back taxes as of Sept. 30, 2011, the (Internal Revenue Service) agency reported earlier this month…”
“The IRS says most residents who owe back income taxes file returns but cannot pay the full amount at tax time. Others have their tax bills increased through audits and cannot pay the higher bill.”
“Most Americans want to end government subsidies for these ‘too big to fail’ institutions, and half want to see those megabanks broken up.”
“The government currently provides nearly $100 billion in subsidies to the largest banks because they are deemed ‘too big to fail’. Just seven percent (7%) of Americans support continuing these subsidies, while 76% are opposed. Sixteen percent (16%) are undecided.”
“Fifty-three percent (53%) still prefer a financial system with more competition and less regulation. Twenty-six percent (26%) would rather have more regulation and less competition in the financial system. Another 21% are not sure…”
“Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats and 51% of adults not affiliated with either major political party support breaking up the megabanks, a plan that just 40% of Republicans favor.”
Storified by Brian Empric· Mon, Mar 25 2013 19:23:37
“The turnabout (of the stock market) is testament to healthy corporate profits and the resilience of America's free enterprise system. And it's a huge relief to workers whose 401(k) plans are tied to equities. But the risky little secret of the rebound is that it is powered in significant part by the easy-money policies of the Federal Reserve, which must one day end.”
“[T]he time is approaching to scale back the bond-buying spree and get ready to unwind some of the Fed's massive portfolio, which now tops $3 trillion. The longer the policy lasts, the more likely it will end unhappily.”
“Savers, particularly older ones trying to live on income from their investments, are starved for safe options. They've been forced into stocks, which is one reason the market has been acting as if it's on steroids. Further, with borrowing costs low, Congress and the White House have less incentive to rein in the national debt.”
“The market is ‘hooked on the drug’ of easy money, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher told Reuters… Fisher's comparison of Fed policies to a drug is apt. Markets might not like the idea of the drug being withdrawn now, when the Fed holds a portfolio of $3 trillion. But the withdrawal symptoms will be a lot worse once the portfolio grows to $4 trillion, or more.”
“The longer the Fed's easy-money policies go on, the greater the risk they will distort markets, create new bubbles and set the economy up for another fall.”
“With the White House closing its doors to public tour groups in order to save money for the sequester, it's worth remembering some of the other costs the White House incurs annually.
“Like the ‘Chief Calligrapher,’ Patricia A. Blair, who has an annual salary of $96,725, and her two deputies, Debra S. Brown, who gets paid $85,953 per year, and Richard T. Muffler, who gets paid $94,372 every year.”
Other #CutWaste opportunities here
“Let’s be honest about one thing: The budget introduced yesterday has about as much chance of becoming law as Nancy Pelosi does of being elected pope.”
“But at least it is a budget. It has now been more than four years since the Senate produced such a document. While Senate Democrats have pledged to do so this year, recent reports suggest that they are struggling to come up with a plan that can garner support from a majority of their members…”
“[T]he Ryan budget provides a view of Republican priorities and their vision for how to increase economic growth, reform entitlements, and balance the budget. While timid and imperfect, Ryan’s plan shows that Republicans are at least looking in the right direction.”
“On the spending side, Ryan would mostly retain the sequester, and would further reduce spending by $5.7 trillion from the current ten-year baseline, bringing the budget into balance by 2023.
“However, while we can undoubtedly look forward to news stories about how Ryan would slash spending, his budget doesn’t actually cut spending at all; it merely slows the rate of growth. Indeed, under Ryan’s proposal, federal spending would still grow by an average of 3.4 percent every year…”
“Ryan’s budget would leave us with roughly $20.85 trillion in debt in 2023, which is $5.29 trillion lower than under the current baseline but still a $4.15 trillion increase over what we currently owe…”
“The budget would also block-grant Medicaid and food stamps (the latter would be reformed more gradually, as the unemployment rate decreases), and reform civil-service pensions by requiring increased contributions from federal workers.”
“As Ryan says, ‘balancing the budget is a means to an end,’ that end being a growing economy and freer, more prosperous society.”
“Based on the premise that national economies grow by about 1 percent less when debt exceeds 90 percent of GDP, the president of the AAF (American Action Forum)—and former Congressional Budget Office director—Douglas Holtz-Eakin predicts that the Republican budget would allow for 5 percent more in economic growth than under current law, translating to that estimated 5 million new jobs in 10 years.”
“But despite the benefits of lowering the debt-to-GDP ratio, there is not widespread bipartisan agreement on whether balancing the budget should be a top priority. Ryan's plan would balance the budget through spending cuts alone. The Democratic plan calls for a combination of discretionary spending reductions, tax increases and boosting infrastructure spending, but it does not balance the budget in the foreseeable future.
“In an interview with ABC News this week, President Barack Obama said he was not interested in balancing the budget ‘just for the sake of balance. My goal is how do we grow the economy, put people back to work, and if we do that we are going to be bringing in more revenue.’”
“Over the next decade, spending under Murray's budget would increase by 62 percent... As the chart shows, the budget would increase a bit each year, under the Democratic plan.”
“Murray’s budget spends $2.2 trillion more in 2023 (the last year of the budget window) than the 2013 levels – a 62% increase (significantly outpacing inflation),” says a staff member on the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee.
“Ryan’s plan is revenue neutral… meaning that it is not an overall tax hike. Senate Democrats say in the Chairman’s Mark that their budget includes ‘only’ $923 billion in higher taxes over the next 10 years, but it turns out to be much higher. Buried elsewhere in their budget is $580 billion in additional tax hikes, bringing the total to $1.5 trillion.”
“Both budgets call for comprehensive tax reform, but they disagree on what that should look like. Chairman Ryan proposes simplifying and streamlining the tax code, highlighting the ‘maze’ of deductions, credits, limitations, and phase-outs that clutter the tax code. He also calls for rate reduction, on both the personal and corporate side… Representing a different vision, Senate Democrats want to ‘restore fairness to the tax code’ by making it even more progressive…”
“Although both plans call for eliminating loopholes, both are woefully short on specifics. Neither dives into the details of which deductions should be cut…”
“Chairman Ryan proposes to simplify our broken tax code by turning our seven individual income tax brackets into two, and then bringing down the marginal tax rates to 10% and 25%... Murray’s budget doesn’t lower personal income tax rates…”
“Chairman Ryan would cut the top corporate tax rate to 25 percent, but Murray’s budget would leave it untouched. AFP supports cutting the corporate tax rate—which is currently the highest in the industrialized world, at 35 percent—since low rates is a principle of optimal taxation and it would produce myriad positive results for the economy. According to a brand-new study from Tax Foundation, cutting the federal corporate tax rate to 25 percent would incite economic growth, more wages and job creation, and higher tax revenue.”
“So it looks like we've all been sentenced to spending at least two more years in budget hell with Barack Obama. Under the rules of budget hell set the past four years by the prince of Pennsylvania Avenue, you're not allowed to do anything real about federal spending. You can only fight over federal spending. Forever.”
“Amid the sequester smackdown with the White House, Republicans did something off-script: They called the Obama bluff. They let the sequester's spending cuts occur, and the apocalypse didn't descend. The only thing that cracked was the president's approval rating.”
“Ever since Ronald Reagan legitimized the efficacy of tax cuts, Democrats have sought to discredit his idea and restore the New Deal theory of a Keynesian multiplier, which dates to 1931. It holds that more public spending will revive a struggling economy… No president has believed more in the miracle of the multiplier than Barack Obama…”
“(Economist Alberto Alesina, a professor at Harvard University) has identified the alternative. His, and others', work the past decade with how struggling economies revive suggests that the Obama spend-more solution is the opposite of what the U.S. should be doing.”
“The path back to stronger growth, argues Mr. Alesina, is a combination of significant, permanent cuts in public spending and relatively small tax increases, if any.”
“Adjustments based upon spending cuts,” the economists concluded, “are much less costly in terms of output losses than tax-based ones. Spending-based adjustments”—that is, cuts—“have been associated with mild and short-lived recessions, in many cases with no recession at all. Tax-based adjustments”—tax increases—“have been associated with prolonged and deep recessions.”
“Fiscal plans based on large, permanent spending cuts are associated with renewed growth more than any alternative policy mix that has been tried. Indeed, spending cuts without big tax increases look to be the only thing that really works…”
“No worries, America. Debt is a preoccupation of the fringe, a mere distraction for anyone interested in progress. And anyway, as President Barack Obama explained this week, ‘we don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt. In fact, for the next 10 years, it’s going to be in a sustainable place.’
“That’s a pretty convenient position, wouldn’t you say, for a man who’s helped pile on trillions of dollars of new debt and created an entitlement that promises to escalate this non-crisis crisis of ours?”
“Right now, we’re spending more money to pay interest on debt than we’ll spend on education, homeland security, transportation and veterans’ benefits combined this year. Surely, there’s something better to spend that money on. And those interest payments are a significant tax on Americans — a debt tax that Washington doesn’t want to talk about. And just wait until interest rates rise, because at some point they will.
“Hey, I didn’t even come up with the previous paragraph. I cribbed it from a speech given on the Senate floor in 2006 by an up-and-comer named Barack Obama. He’s so articulate I couldn’t resist. But those were the stormy days when debt mattered because Republicans were … well, Republicans.”
“Of course, debt isn’t always a bad idea. We build things for the next generation, and they should chip in, no doubt. But right now, public debt is more than 75 percent of gross domestic product. So when do we get to worry? At 100 percent?”
“Last month, the Congressional Budget Office released its revised baseline for spending, taxation, and deficits for the next decade. It is not pretty. The gross federal debt is expected to increase by nearly $10 trillion over 10 years, from $16 trillion today to roughly $26 trillion in 2023.
“Beyond the 10-year horizon, the fiscal picture only gets worse. Without major reforms, the government’s vast array of health entitlements—starting with Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and Obamacare—are set to grow from about 5 percent of gross domestic product today to 9 percent in 2033, 12 percent in 2053, and 15 percent in 2073. There is no way the nation can afford that bill, absent a shocking increase in taxation. What’s more, taxes would have to be raised again and again and again, as health entitlements are expected to grow faster than the economy.”
“Much has been written about the nation’s awful budgetary outlook, but one aspect that is often overlooked is the effect the country’s debt and deficit will have on the American political landscape.”
“Right off the bat, the looming debt crisis explains why House Republicans persist with a policy solution that has not been politically popular in the past. Today’s House GOP believes it has no choice; the duties of responsible governing require a solution to this problem, even if such a solution is unpopular… The fiscal situation also explains why Senate Democrats have failed to produce a budget in four years. Senate majority leader Harry Reid has a hyper-transactional approach to politics, always preferring to shield his members from tough votes, or sweeten the pot for them when he has no choice.”
“Together, the different approaches that House Republicans and Senate Democrats have taken in dealing with the nation’s fiscal mess illustrate the profound changes occurring in American politics. Reid has chosen the fiscally irresponsible but politically easy path; Ryan the opposite. It is either one or the other, because the two goals are now mutually exclusive. A responsible policy requires a departure from the status quo—meaning higher taxes, entitlement reforms, or both—that will be politically dangerous.”
“Politicians of generations past could pass a budget or agree to raise the debt ceiling without much trouble because they never really had to worry that the debt was out of control. Today, they have no such luxury. Hence the persistent fighting over what were once perfunctory tasks.
“Until the public makes up its mind about what to do next, all bets about American politics are off. The near-term political outlook is messy, fraught with finger-pointing, demagoguery, and vitriolic rhetoric as both sides try to position themselves…”
“One thing, though, is clear: The political center as we know it today will no longer exist. For generations, Americans have demanded more, more, more from their government, which has been able to supply it without burdening the citizenry with onerous taxes. No longer. The time for painful choices is at hand.”
Storified by Brian Empric· Sun, Mar 17 2013 15:48:42
“That’s up six points from a month ago and the highest level of pessimism to date. Twenty-two percent (22%) think the system is more likely to get better, while 13% expect it to stay about the same.”
“Democrats remain much more upbeat about the direction of the health care system than Republicans and voters not affiliated with either party. Eighty-four percent (84%) of GOP voters and 53% of unaffiliateds think the health care system is likely to get worse over the next couple of years. At the same time, a plurality of Democrats (39%) expect it to get better.”
“Anyone can criticize. Where is the Republican alternative?”
“Think about the special interests Republican politicians are likely to talk to. Doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, drug companies, device manufacturers, employers, etc. Their interests are all different. I doubt if you can come up with any significant health reform that won’t be vigorously opposed by at least one of these. Since heath care is a $2.6 trillion industry, special interests are willing to spend megabucks to oppose reforms they don’t like.”
“Overall, think tanks on the right have a habit of ignoring each other. Often, they don’t even footnote each other. We proposed the idea of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) in the early 1990s... Today, HSA plans are the fastest growing products in the health insurance marketplace and I think it’s safe to say that the idea is no longer even controversial…”
“The NCPA web site is about the only place on the Internet where you will find a continuing, ongoing interest in how we can create a genuine market for medical care in which providers compete for patients based on price, quality and convenience… In my ideal world, health insurance companies would have a shrinking role — eventually becoming no more active than a garden variety life insurance company.”
“The conservative think tank problem is not their belief in free markets. It is that each think tank seems to have a different idea about how markets can solve problems… Bottom line: there is no common health policy vision on the right.”
“Imminent elements of Obama's grandest policy move, the health-care overhaul known as ObamaCare, are calculated to screw his most passionate supporters (the youth) and to transfer wealth to his worst enemies (the elderly).”
“And while one of ObamaCare's earliest provisions was a boon to the young, allowing them to stay on their parents' insurance through the age of 26, what follows may come as an unpleasant surprise to many of the president's supporters. The provisions required to make any kind of health insurance plan work — not just ObamaCare, but really any plan of its sort — require healthy young people to pay more in health insurance than they consume in services, while the elderly… consume far more than they pay in…”
“In an interview, AARP legislative policy director David Certner (@DavidCertner) didn't contest the suggestion that young people would be forced to pay more, but argued that it was a matter of the common good, not simply the interest of his constituents.”
“It's about having a big insurance pool because everyone benefits from it,” Certner said. “If a younger, healthier person is spending a little more now, it's OK because at some point they're going to be a less healthy, older person too.”
“This is a reasonable policy argument, though it's worth noting that every interest group argues its interests are identical to the common good…”
“The near-total silence on this issue is a mark of a class that is either utterly selfless (hard to believe, honestly) or, as usual, singularly bad at seeing and defending its interests.”
The supporters of the law think that subsidies will keep premiums down, while the mandate keeps them in the market to avoid penalties, but the penalties are relatively weak and the subsidies will not be able to cover the premium increases.
“[A]s ObamaCare's official launch date approaches, even its backers are beginning to admit that the law could actually create powerful incentives for millions of people and thousands of businesses to drop their coverage, despite the mandate.”
“A February survey of major health insurance companies in five cities across the country found that they expect premiums for this (young & healthy) group to climb an average 169%.”
“We are very concerned,” California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones told federal health officials at a December meeting, “if there is so much rate shock for young people that they're bound not to purchase (health insurance) at all.”
“The five-city survey, for example, found that while the law will jack up rates for the young, it will lower them an average 22% for older and sicker customers.
“At the same time, ObamaCare also forbids insurance companies from turning anyone down — a reform called ‘guaranteed issue’ — which also will provide an incentive for some to drop coverage, knowing they can get it back any time.”
“The problem is that if the young and healthy drop coverage, the result would be what the industry calls a ‘death spiral.’ Premiums will climb as the pool of insured gets sicker, causing still more to cancel their policies… This is just what happened in states that imposed strict community rating and guaranteed issue reforms in the past. In fact, of the eight states that did so, most ended up either dropping the reforms or loosening the rules after they saw enrollment decline and premiums climb.”
“[T]he annual penalty for not buying insurance will be as low as $95 in 2014, and even when the mandate penalty is fully phased in by 2016 it will be modest relative to the cost of buying insurance.”
“The same problem threatens to undermine ObamaCare on the business side, if companies decide that paying a penalty is cheaper than providing an increasingly expensive benefit to workers.
“The Congressional Budget Office now expects that employers will dump coverage for 7 million workers as a result of ObamaCare, nearly double its previous forecast. And it says the figure could be as high as 20 million.”
“Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala. and ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, @budgetgop), who requested the report, revealed the findings... The report, he said, ‘confirms everything critics and Republicans were saying about the faults of this bill…’”
“The big-government crowd in Washington manipulated the numbers in order to get the financial score they wanted, in order to get their bill passed and to increase power and influence,” he said. “The goal was not truth or financial responsibility, but to pass the bill. This is how a country goes broke.”
“Obamacare was the one issue that most pegged Obama as a big government liberal in the eyes of the American citizenry. By refusing to emphasize it, Romney allowed Obama to move to the center in voters’ minds. Obamacare was the centerpiece of Obama’s first term. By not emphasizing it, Romney suggested to voters that it really wasn’t all that much of a concern — and hence neither was having Obama continue in office. Obamacare was the least popular aspect of Obama’s first term. By failing to hammer away at it, Romney handed Obama a pass. Obamacare is a horribly misguided and statist attempt to deal with genuine health care concerns that sorely need to be addressed. By failing to put forward (and to emphasize) a serious replacement, Romney prove to be the latest, and perhaps the most unfortunate, example in a long history of Republicans’ failure to make themselves heard on an issue that’s not only extremely important in its own right, but which (at least in the present day) probably has more bearing than any other issue on the size and scope of government.”
“In short, there is nothing attractive about Obamacare. One hopes that in 2016 the Republican party will nominate someone who understands this, and who will make Obamacare’s replacement a — perhaps the — centerpiece of his or her campaign. If Republicans are to be the party of limited government and liberty, they must do nothing less.”
Storified by Brian Empric· Mon, Feb 18 2013 18:35:54
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