The idea behind cap and trade is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by putting a price on the right to emit carbon and other greenhouse gases on businesses. Since 85 percent of America’s energy needs are met through carbon-emitting fossil fuels, cap and trade would be a massive tax on energy consumption if enacted. The debate will move to the Senate this fall. Here’s what to expect if the Senate passes their own version of Waxman-Markey and President Obama signs cap and trade into law. By 2035:
TOP 10 REASONS OBAMACARE IS WRONG FOR AMERICA Millions Will Lose Their Current Insurance. Period. End of Story: President Obama wants Americans to believe they can keep their insurance if they like, but research from the government, private research firms, and think tanks show this is not the case. Proposed economic incentives, plus a government-run health plan like the one proposed in the House bill, would cause 88.1 million people to see their current employer-sponsored health plan disappear. Your Health Care Coverage Will Probably Change Anyway: Even if you kept …
For the second time in less than two weeks, the independent and non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has dealt a crushing blow to President Barack Obama’s health care plans. First, on July 17th, CBO director Doug Elmendorf sent a letter to House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY), explaining that, in direct contradiction to President Obama’s promise that his health plan would not add “even one dime to our deficit over the next decade,” the House health plan would actually increase the budget deficit by $239 billion over ten …
Confused about whether the House health care bill, H.R. 3200, is deficit-neutral? No wonder. House Leadership maintains the bill will be “fully paid for and not contribute to the deficit.” On the other hand, CBO has said the bill will add $239 billion to the deficit over 10 years. Leadership’s statement is true, but only if you assume larger deficits every year. Larger deficits are deficit-neutral? How can this be? Leadership says, simple! They will pass PAYGO legislation first, and health care reform second. PAYGO – a key policy objective …
According to President Obama’s televised remarks, he recently met with Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Doug Elmendorf to discuss health care reform. Of course, the President may desire to meet with anyone if he believes such a meeting can help advance his agenda. However, it is extremely disturbing for a senior staff person employed by the Legislative branch of our government to be meeting with the head of the Executive branch, most especially at a time when the CBO is among the most key participants in the ongoing health care …
President Obama has repeatedly signaled he would not support a health care reform bill unless it includes long-term cost savings. He recently promised to “take on key causes of rising [health care] costs – saving billions while providing better care to the American people.” But will the current health care reform proposals actually curtail costs? Recent estimates from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) say no. The 10-year price tag for the House version currently stands at $1.3 trillion.
On July 2, 2009, the Congressional Budget Office produced its second preliminary analysis of title I of the “Affordable Health Choices Act,” as drafted by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP). This CBO “score” has been used a great deal over the past few weeks in the specific analysis of the HELP version of health care reform legislation, but it also is a valuable lesson in using caution against oversimplification. It provides some, but not all of the critical answers needed to fully understand reform legislation. …
Last month, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest Long-Term Budget Outlook. The Washington Post’s Robert Samuelson reports: For the past half-century, federal spending has averaged about 20 percent of GDP, federal taxes about 18 percent of GDP and the budget deficit 2 percent of GDP. The CBO’s projection for 2020 — which assumes the economy has returned to “full employment” — puts spending at 26 percent of GDP, taxes at a bit less than 19 percent of GDP and a deficit above 7 percent of GDP. Future spending …
Senate Democrats are desperately trying every trick in the book to get the lowest possible cost scoring out of the CBO. Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow James Capretta descends into the weeds to explain the latest regressive tax they have come up with to pay for their health care plans: Senate Democrats, including, have also Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus discovered the budgetary virtues of heavy-handed government decrees. If you want to expand insurance coverage, you can simply make people sign up for a plan — whether they want …
Three weeks ago, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a preliminary score of the Kennedy-Dodd health reform bill. CBO estimated that Title I of the draft legislation alone would have added $1 trillion to the federal deficit while only extending coverage to 16 million of the uninsured. The score sent the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee back to the drawing board. Although Democrats on the HELP committee pledged to be bipartisan and transparent as they reworked the bill, those promises were broken late last week. While the …
