CBO - "The Emperor Has No Clothes!"

Budget Analyst Assails Cost of Congress's Health-Care Proposals - washingtonpost.com: "Congress's chief budget analyst delivered a devastating assessment yesterday of the health-care proposals drafted by congressional Democrats, fueling an insurrection among fiscal conservatives in the House and pushing negotiators in the Senate to redouble efforts to draw up a new plan that more effectively restrains federal spending.

Under questioning by members of the Senate Budget Committee, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, said bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose 'the sort of fundamental changes' necessary to rein in the skyrocketing cost of government health programs, particularly Medicare. On the contrary, Elmendorf said, the measures would pile on an expensive new program to cover the uninsured."

The courageous Mr. Elmendorf (probably soon to join the ranks of the unemployed) laid bare the ridiculous contradictions of the President's health care argument:

1) Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupting the federal government
2) Only health care reform can save us from this crushing burden
3) Only by vastly expanding the federal government role in health care can we bring about reform.

Mr Elmendorf agreed with point 1. But, inconveniently, he pointed out that there is no real reform in the Democrats' plan (making moot point 2). And, even more inconveniently, he indicated that Mr. Obama's vast expansion of the federal government's role will only exacerbate the problem raised in point 1.

Or, in other words, Mr Elmendorf didn't buy this line of reasoning:

1) Current government health care spending is bankrupting the nation
2) Therefore, to address the problem, government is henceforth going to spend much more on health care
3) Problem solved

I know what you libs are saying: "You are ignoring the key point the President is making. The REFORMS in this bill are going to save us so much money, that we will be able to expand health care while spending less overall. This is due to the well-known superior efficiency of government vs the private sector." Well, to quote Mr. Elmendorf, the Democrat-selected head of the Congressional Budget Office: ":[The] bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose 'the sort of fundamental changes' necessary to rein in the skyrocketing cost of government health programs."

Here's a list of all the things government does more efficiently than the private sector:

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

Open, Honest, and Transparent Budgeting

Michael Boskin Says Barack Obama's Trillion-Dollar Deficit Budget Will Impede Economic Growth - WSJ.com:

"The claim to reduce the deficit by half compares this year's immense (mostly inherited) deficit to the projected fiscal year 2013 deficit, the last of his current term. While it is technically correct that the deficit would be less than half this year's engorged level, a do-nothing budget would reduce it by 84%. Compared to do-nothing, Mr. Obama's deficit is more than two and a half times larger in fiscal year 2013."

I'm starting to miss the straight-talk of Bill Clinton. This is a great column explaining all the chicanery around Pres. Obama's budget claims.

...what is not just worrisome but dangerous are the growing trillion dollar deficits in the latter years of the Obama budget. These deficits are so large for a prosperous nation in peacetime -- three times safe levels -- that they would cause the debt burden to soar toward banana republic levels.

Pay No Attention to All Those Red Lines - After All I Inherited a Deficit

Projected Deficit - washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/03/21/GR2009032100104.html

At his press conference, the President repeatedly evaded answering questions about whether he was sticking our children with paying for our overspending. As I recall, his arguments were:

1) I inherited a big deficit. How that justifies going on to triple the deficit you inherited totally escapes me.

2) It's either do what I propose or do nothing. STRAW MAN ALERT. There really is no course of action somewhere between doing nothing and running up $9.3 TRILLION in deficits?

3) If we don't spend all this money on education and healthcare, there's no way our economy is going to grow at even 2% HUH? Which economy has been the growth engine of the world, the US, or the European socialist states Pres Obama wants to turn us into? And how does throwing more money at our woefully inefficient education system, without reforming it, promise to generate any return on our "investment?" Thus far, federal spending on education has been pretty much inversely related to the global competitiveness of our education system.

How Long Before the Purge at the CBO?

News Headlines - $1 trillion deficits seen for next 10 years : Townhall.com:

"President Barack Obama's budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1
trillion a year over the next decade, according to the latest congressional
estimates, significantly worse than predicted by the White House just last
month.
The Congressional Budget Office figures, obtained by The Associated
Press Friday, predict Obama's budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink
over 2010-2019. That's $2.3 trillion worse than the White House predicted in its
budget.
Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama's policies would
never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, figures that economists
agree are unsustainable. By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5
percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level."

The only surprise here is that the CBO is still free to make and publicly release honest analysis of government economic policy.

More Shameless DoubletalkFrom the Great Unifier

Obama to Republicans: Enough with 'just say no' - Los Angeles Times:

"Obama to Republicans: Enough with 'just say no'
GOP opposition to taxes and proposed spending in the president's budget plan has spurred Democrats to portray Republicans as the negativity party. Obama tells Republicans to offer constructive ideas.

Reporting from Washington -- In an effort to boost pressure on congressional Republicans, President Barack Obama appealed to them to stop sniping at his budget proposals and offer their own constructive ideas, saying that the current difficult times call for more than negativity."

This is a clever, but breathtakingly dishonest tactic by the president. If he wants to hear the Republicans' constructive ideas, perhaps he should stop his pals in Congress from:

Pushing monumental legislation through Congress so rapidly that it can't even be read
Refusing to consider Republican proposals and amendments
Shoving provisions into laws during the reconciliation process, essentially stifling all debate on the matter

Republicans have offered many constructive proposals (many to be found in this blog) such as:

Lowering taxes on corporations
Lowering taxes on investments
Allowing corporations to repatriate profits earned overseas without paying confiscatory taxes on them
Suspending mark-to-market accounting rules
Expanding, not reducing free trade
Stimulating the economy (now) and improving our defense posture by spending stimulus money to replenish military weapons and materiel stockpiles depleted from the war
Expanding, not reducing charitable giving
Expanding, not reducing, school vouchers
Opening up a national market for health insurance
Extending the tax break for medical insurance to employees
The list goes on and on

There is no dearth of alternative ideas in Washington, just an unwillingness on the part of the "post-partisan President" to hear them.

Friendly Fire Shows Obama Losing Focus

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Friendly Fire Shows Obama Losing Focus: by Michael Barone

"We did not have a housing bubble collapse because we don't have a national health insurance program. We don't have toxic waste clogging the balance sheets of the banks and other financial institutions because of carbon emissions. The Bush tax cuts were not a proximate cause of the giant public debt being run up under the Toxic Assets Relief Program or the 2009 stimulus package.

And, as Galston points out, the New Deal doesn't provide a precedent for the Obama budget. In his first months in office, Franklin Roosevelt concentrated on repairing a financial system that was in much worse shape than ours is today, with most banks closed. Roosevelt got most of them open and running again.

It was a couple of years later that the programs we remember the New Deal for were passed —"

We must begin to explain to Obama supporters and on-the-fencers that this guy is playing a shell game with the American people.

The Judgment of Bush Administration Religious Extremists?

The Weekly Standard:

"In our judgment, the derivation of stem cells from embryos remaining following infertility treatments is justifiable only if no less morally problematic alternatives are available for advancing the research."

No, actually the judgment of the Clinton bioethics panel, circa 1999. Yet, Pres. Obama dishonestly paints the Bush administration policy on embryonic stem cell research as anti-scientific political pandering to religious voters. Read John McCormack's complete post at the Weekly Standard blog.

The Six-Trillion-Dollar Man

The Six-Trillion-Dollar Man by Mark Steyn on National Review Online:

"Of course, when Barack Obama is accused of creating his Six-Trillion-Dollar Man “because I believe in bigger government” he denies it: “I don’t,” he says flatly. This is like Clark Kent telling Lois Lane he’s not Superman: They just look a bit similar when he removes his glasses. Likewise, any connection between Obama and a Big Government behemoth swallowing everything in sight is entirely coincidental."

Read this column by Mark Steyn, it's hilarious.