Hiatt: ObamaCare Brings U.S. Closer to Bankruptcy


While the dollar hits a 15 month low, and gold hits an all time high, and the editorial page editor of the Washington Post (no less) is warning:

“The bill also could take America a step closer to bankruptcy. And for progressives in particular — for those who believe that government has a mission to help the poor and protect the vulnerable — that prospect should be alarming. If federal debt continues rising on its present path, hastened by a $1 trillion health-care bill, it is the poor and vulnerable who will be most harmed.”

This is also why some political risk analysts are connecting the dots between PelosiCare and the value of the dollar:

“If the Reserve Bank of India’s directors had any doubts about the wisdom of buying 200 tonnes of IMF gold — and likely dumping some U.S. Treasuries in the process — they had only to watch last weekend’s legislative activities on Capitol Hill. The proceedings provided plenty of reassurance that the move was a smart play.

“Nothing in the healthcare reform bill that passed the House of Representatives should give investors in dollar-denominated assets any confidence that U.S. policymakers are serious about tackling the government’s structural budget deficit.”

Amazing as it is that the Washington Post would be pointing out the obvious about the Democrats $1.2 Trillion health care spending plan, since liberal and progressive news writers have given aide, comfort and a criticism-free ride for those who are doing the spending.

It is apparent that there is no amount of money too high to spend for the House Democrats on health care reform. CBO confirms the amended House bill spends $3 Trillion.

But now Fred Hiatt has really stepped over the lines — he is “calling out” President Obama for his failure to cut keep his promise about the health bill spending and the deficit.

“True, the Congressional Budget Office has said that the bill is paid for. But the CBO is not allowed to count $250 billion in projected Medicare payments to doctors over the next 10 years, because the House — after first acknowledging that cost in its reform bill — decreed it had nothing to do with reform because lawmakers didn’t want to pay for it.“Nor is the CBO permitted to ask whether Congress will truly cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare programs in coming years, as the House bill assumes. History suggests that legislators will not be deaf to the complaints of seniors and those who treat them when it comes time for the axe to fall.

“As Post health reporter Ceci Connolly explained in a front-page story last week, the House bill also does not do much to lower costs.”

I asked a senior Senator who sits on the Committee on Finance when Congress has ever cut Medicare more than $100 billion, let along half a trillion — the answer was “never.” Will Congress make the cuts they say they will — answer: No. Then why is CBO accepting these promises — because CBO has agreed to let the cuts be paper ones, never real.

The Democrats have lost touch with fiscal reality, do not care about the cost of their bill and are especially giving the middle finger to all those independent voters concerned about spending and the deficit. The Democrats say they care about spending and the deficit, but they keep spending trillion after trillion. It is really ironic that Hiatt quotes a “progressive” budget analyst, about the debt, since progressives have been the ones pushing to spend trillions on health care.

In a nutshell, five percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product will be financed by debt:

“Under his plan, according to a CBO analysis, the government will be spending 24.5 percent of gross domestic product — the total value of the national economy — by 2019 while raising only 19 percent in revenue: a huge, unsustainable gap.

“In the kind of fiscal crisis that might ensue, as progressive budget expert Robert Greenstein said recently, “the risk is high that the people with the least political power in this country could bear a disproportionate share of the burden even though, by and large, they’re lower on the income scale.” The government would spend more and more on interest payments while likely stinting on college scholarships, inner-city schools, and, above all, aid to the poor and near-poor here and abroad.”

This is a surprise? The President lies about the debt and cost of his plan. CBO pretends — while protesting they are being forced to pretend — cuts to Medicare will happen that will not and never have happened. (A Democratic controlled U.S. House, U.S. Senate and White House will cut Medicare half a trillion — oh, we are really playing charades, is that it?)

The U.S. House leadership kept increasing the spending on their health bill without any limit, they just spent because they want too — and the U.S. House leadership lies about the cost of its bill.

We are living in a pretend land where we say everything is revenue-neutral and we promise not to go into debt, but our elected leaders are lying to the American people and to the world’s financial circles. When the editorial page of the Washington Post starts warning about moving closer to bankruptcy, and progress budget analysts are warning about debt, you can bet things are really far worse than you can imagine. I guess their warnings are better late than never.

And now, even the New York Times is writing about some kinda, maybe, sorta fiscal concern and the powerless factions advocating it — versus the let’s spend to pass this bill White House faction that is winning the let’s pretend contest of fiscal fantasies.

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18 Comments Leave a comment

Isn't Bankruptcy the goal?

jeannieology Tuesday, November 10th at 2:02PM EST (link)

The article misses the point, it grows government to gargantuan size…

General_Confusion Tuesday, November 10th at 2:15PM EST (link)

Mission accomplished! What possible downside could there be? Next up Cap (the economy) and Trade (your freedoms away)!

The Wrong Battlefield, the Wrong Questions

ggross56 Tuesday, November 10th at 4:32PM EST (link)

I maintain in this post that Republicans will lose this fight if we continue fighting on the Democrats’ battlefield of ‘deficit neutrality’ & CBO scoring.

More people are interested in knowing whether their health insurance premiums will continue going up, whether their taxes will get raised & whether Medicare benefits get cut.

LET’S FIGHT ON THAT BATTLEFIELD!!!

Yes, because when we need to work to 75 to start

6eorge Jetson Wednesday, November 11th at 1:56AM EST (link)

collecting Social Security, we can console ourselves that technically* there was no Social Security bankruptcy event.**

*Technically, the govt could end all social security payments tomorrow and it wouldn’t be a bankruptcy event, since seniors have no legal claim to the funds until they are distributed. They do have one hell of a political claim on them, however.

**Would I like to go back to age 22 and have pay no social security tax to be transferred to the seniors then collecting SS? Heck, yeah. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to do that.

 
 
 
 

Bankruptcy, then we'll really need government

johnt Tuesday, November 10th at 2:14PM EST (link)

First, blame Bush, there’s still mileage in that one.
Next, pose the Democrats and federal programs as the answer to various problems created by them and easily avoidable.
Then they can start their push towards Fairness in the media, required by emergencies and combating Hatred, etc.
Finally, continue to encourage media tramps in their smearing and witless name calling. Combine this with the KO punch, full subsidies for different news sources, print & electronic, that have eased the way for our homegrown totalitarian party. Of course that will give The O and our degenerate Congress the upper and fully controlling hand over a media that virtually put them in power, but those dopes haven’t figured that out.
By the time they do it will be too late, Hello Pravda.

Destruction, if you’re a liberal there’s nothing like it.

“a man’s admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him”. Tocqueville

 

All things considered...

mikefisk Tuesday, November 10th at 2:18PM EST (link)

…large-scale devaluation of the dollar, or, in lieu of that, massive appreciation of certain currencies (in particular the yuan, as well as other currencies in countries who hold sizable current accounts surpluses with us), are almost inevitable short of Fed intervention. Your basic open economy macro models would show that.

That being said, unless the goal is a race to the bottom in currency values, further government spending is usually a one-way ticket to currency devaluation (or the government taking a bloodbath on buying back currency). While it could help jump-start our economy by spurring exports and curtailing imports, I think the average policy-maker would rather not hinge our recovery from recession on the sclerotic economies of Europe…

(Sorry, been going over this stuff in my M.A.-level macro classes lately, so that’s where I’m probably focusing too much on)

“Once within the maw of Leviathan, degree of digestion is irrelevant.” - Michael Fisk

7.88, -1.97

Either massive devaluation

Dan Perrin Wednesday, November 11th at 12:47AM EST (link)

or a spike in inflation and interest rates

This would be the death of Obama’s re-election chances.

 
 

another Dem Senator might get it too

douglast Tuesday, November 10th at 2:21PM EST (link)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/10/warner-obama-misplayed-health-care-debate/print/

“Freshman Sen. Mark Warner, Virginia Democrat, said Tuesday that President Obama has misplayed his attempt to reform U.S. heath care by focusing on insurance coverage instead of explaining that the current system is headed toward a financial meltdown”

“Mr. Warner also said Tuesday that he, along with some Republicans and fellow Democrats in Congress, think the economy will never fully recover from the recession unless the roughly $1.4 trillion federal deficit is brought under control”

Sounds like Sen. Mark Warner "got religion" after the recent election

malbis Tuesday, November 10th at 2:47PM EST (link)

and can see the handwriting on the wall. For someone with his experience–former Governor of Virginia, former Chair of the Virginia Democrat Party, manager of Doug Wilder’s gubernatorial campaign–that seems to me to be fairly significant.

Hopefully, nobody in power in the current Democrat Party at the national level is going to have brains enough to listen to him. :-)

Why the real Unemployment rate is really 21.4%, not 10.2%

From the 1940 feature film Ghost Breakers, starring the late, great, Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard:

Scientist: “It’s worse than horrible, because a zombie has no will of his own. You see them sometimes, walking around blindly with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring.”
Bob Hope: “You mean, like Democrats?”</di

Senator Warner VA

Scope Tuesday, November 10th at 3:07PM EST (link)

from what I understand was not a hard left Liberal/Progressive, and, that made him popular here in VA as Gov. I wasn’t here during the most of his reign, as I had left the state for a few years. Funny that when the push was on for Deeds in the end, and he had the DC crowd all converging on us, Warner had the flu. He didn’t campaign hard for him even before that, if at all. The one to watch is Senator Webb. He may be easier to provoke into a no vote on healthcare, as he is up for re-election in 2010. You know what just happened with our Governor’s election, and, all the way down ticket to City Councils. Webb needs to be seriously pursued, hog-tied and shown what the back of a door looks like if he votes with Evil Harry.

kowalski- I meant to say what the front of a door looks like

Scope Tuesday, November 10th at 3:10PM EST (link)

Webb's not up till '12. (nt)

Third Street Tuesday, November 10th at 3:29PM EST (link)

Senator Warner did commercials for Deeds...

DONTREADONME Tuesday, November 10th at 4:02PM EST (link)

saying as a Governor and now a Senator, blah, blah, blah etc vote for Deeds; however, what’s interesting is that Webb stayed far away from Deeds. At least from the perspective of NoVA. Webb and Warner have to be very careful in VA, any vote that swings them anti-gun, firmly pro-choice instead of quasi-life or seen as Big government will put those candidates in deep trouble.

The Webb versus Allen campaign it never seemed like the two candidates greatly differed on the critical issues like the GWOT or Government spending. Time will tell.

“The UN is right? you can’t be any more “un”; Than you are right now, the UN is undone, Another mushroom cloud, another smoking gun, The threat is real, the Locust King has come, Don’t tell me the truth; I don’t like what they’ve done, Just give me ammo for the United Abominations”-Megadeth

the perception of the moderates

Dan Perrin Wednesday, November 11th at 12:50AM EST (link)

acting like liberals on spending, taxes, abortion, guns and immigration — all wrapped up in the ObamaCare bill will be toxic to them.

Once people think they are acting like liberals because they are in Washington and not standing up to the left then their chance of re-election drop massively.

 
 
 
 
 

Third Street you are absolutely correct

Scope Tuesday, November 10th at 3:41PM EST (link)

I was thinking Warner was just elected, and it feels like Webb has been around forever . Man how time goes by so slowly when you are waiting for something bad to end.

 

Third Street you are absolutely correct

Scope Tuesday, November 10th at 3:41PM EST (link)

I was thinking Warner was just elected, and it feels like Webb has been around forever . Man how time goes by so slowly when you are waiting for something bad to end.

 

"it is the poor and vulnerable who will be most harmed.”"

Tbone Tuesday, November 10th at 4:25PM EST (link)

LOL. The Washington Post really thinks that the Left actually cares about the poor. Now that is rich.

Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.

I'm glad you see the irony

Dan Perrin Wednesday, November 11th at 12:51AM EST (link)

in it too

I was wondering if I was being too subtle

 
 

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