Democrats Lied About Obamacare

Congressman Paul Ryan Throws the BS Flag On Obamacare!

It didn't take an accounting degree to know that the Pelosi-rammed, Demo-scam known as Obamacare was a money wasting fraud.  Common sense Americans never bought the fairy tales about how everybody's going to get more and better care while saving money.

While they were at it, why didn't Harry and the Pelosicrats also promise they'd rid the world of unicorn poop and capture that leprechaun and take his pot o' gold hidden at the end of the rainbow? 

Only the willfully ignorant hopium smokers on the left believed this colossal Obamacare lie.  "But it was scored by the CBO!" Cry the Obama-langa-ding-dongs.  The CBO is a non-partisan organization that scores what is presented to them,  regardless of how pie-in-the-sky its assumptions are and regardless of the transparency of the tricks.  CBO scores it as presented.

Ryan resubmitted this travesty of lawmaking to the CBO, minus the tricks and hidden costs, and we now see it will cost almost a trillion dollars.  Here are the highlights...

Claims of deficit reduction exclude the $115 billion needed to implement the law. 

The score double-counts $521 billion from Social Security payroll taxes, CLASS Act premiums, and Medicare cuts.

It strips a costly doc-fix provision that was included in initial score. ($208 billion)

It measures 10 years of revenues to offset 6 years of new spending. 

There is no question that the creation of a trillion dollar open-ended entitlement is a fiscal train wreck.

Not only should this stinking pile of statist lies be repealed in its entirety, the perpetrators should be brought up on charges of fraud.

Go Congressman Ryan!  Keep up the excellent work!

http://budget.house.gov/healthcare/

The First Cut is the Deepest

Ezra Klein criticizes the GOP's Pledge for America as being short on details, and it is.  But it's meant to be a manifesto more than a line-by-line laundry list.  Also, with the Democrats floundering, the GOP sure doesn't want to give them anything to grab on to.

Detroit News concludes that, yeah, there's nothing new in their message:  It's a much-needed back to basics.

"Oh yeah?  Wacha gonna cut?  Huh?  Huh?"  Shout the screaming lefties.  Obama, like all good liberal demagogues, slyly suggests that they want to kill old people and starve children.  It's lefty propaganda, but there is a grain of truth.

No Easy Cuts 
There are no easy cuts, so those of us who want to shrink government need to do some thinking.

The Left Way:  The Center for American Progress, a progressive organization, has taken their stab at balancing the budget.  The document, A Thousand Cuts, seems designed more to scare people off of the small government path, but at least it is a serious and sincere effort.

The Right Way:  Paul Ryans Roadmap.   It's a thing of beauty, and it's been scored by the CBO.  As a bonus, the website is attractive and easy to navigate.  Most important, the roadmap is not the end of the discussion.  Ryan himself portrays it as a starting point for a national dialogue, and Americans are ready for such as discussion.   

You can also go read the Pledge to America...  If you can find it.  Google it and every hare-brained commentary on it will show up ahead of the GOP's official site.  Then, when you finally find it, it's a damned pdf document that's 10 bajillion gigabytes and takes forever to load.   The Republicans, God bless 'em, are so inept and rolling stuff like this out.

Defusing the Debt Bomb

Fareed Zakaria is one of my favorite liberals.  He and conservative George Will account for 99% of the brainpower over at Newsweek. Zakaria has written a short, smart and well-reasoned article on how to tackle the nation's mounting debt. 

I don't agree with everything he said, and it's a little simplistic, but journalism such as this is what we need to help us understand complex issues.

He lays out three simple proposals:  Adopt a VAT, end certain subsidies, adjust entitlements

"Adopt a Value Added Tax (VAT)" 
I am only for this if we completely scrap the current tax code on US citizens and businesses.  None of this "we'll impose VAT now and adjust the income tax to compensate..."  No way.  Scrap it.  Then we can talk about the VAT.

A VAT is progressive, especially if basic food staples are exempted.  Rich people buy more stuff and more expensive stuff, so they would pay more tax under this plan.  It also removes the penalty for saving and investing while promoting capital formation that powers job growth.

"End the massive, distorting subsidies for home-ownership, health care, and agriculture"
I'm willing to raise Fareed on this one:  End ALL subsidies!  Let the free market chips fall where they may.  If it's a good idea it will survive; obsolete solutions will succumb to Schumpeter's creative destruction.  Up from the ashes will grow new ideas, new jobs and new solutions to society's challenges.  

"Make sensible adjustments to entitlements"
This will have to be done, one way or another.  Entitlements constitute around 50% of the federal budget and the share is growing, along with interest payments on the debt that fund these programs.

Slowly increasing the retirement age is one way government is already doing this.  "Ending Welfare as we know it" was another.  The greatest leap would be to wholesale divest the federal government of all extra-constitutional function and free up individuals, families and communities to tailor problem solving to each one's unique situation.

Fareed Zakaria, like Paul Ryan, has done a public service by putting his ideas out there.  You may not agree with them, but we need a vigorous debate on how to avoid fiscal calamity while not starving everyone in the process.  Putting government on a diet would be a good first step.