As the new Congress settles in, the House of Representatives prepares to vote on January 12 on a measure to repeal Obamacare. Proponents of the health care law claim that repeal would increase the federal deficit and that a vote to kill Obamacare without offsetting the “cost” is hypocritical. This couldn’t be more wrong. For starters, Obamacare will not reduce the deficit. Though the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that the health law would create $124 billion in savings, the CBO is required to make unlikely assumptions and disregard budget …
Four years after Democrats campaigned on the promise of using pay-as-you-go budgeting, their record is dismal. Since gaining control of Congress in 2007, they’ve gamed, ignored or employed PAYGO on 32 occasions to justify new spending or tax increases. Once hailed as a budgetary tool to stop deficit spending, PAYGO has become a gimmick House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) has used repeatedly to provide cover to her liberal allies. “Democrats are committed to fiscal responsibility through pay-as-you-go budgets, so that our children and grandchildren are not saddled with mountains of …
For the second time in a week, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D–MT) has called for the suspension of pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) budget rules to pass necessary and vital tax policies. First, Baucus suggested waiving PAYGO as it pertains to the death tax. Now he’s calling for the Senate to rightly ignore PAYGO so it can keep the tax rate on dividends from skyrocketing to almost 40 percent from its current 15 percent level. The 2001 and 2003 tax relief packages expire at the end of this year. That means …
Over the past weekend Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the House Majority Leader, gave one of the most expansive and surprising speeches of the year. State-of-the-Unionesque in scope and partisan tone it nevertheless laid out some interesting ideas for debate. On one top tier issue Mr. Hoyer hit the nail on the head when he said: More than ever, it’s possible to imagine a government with nothing left to spend on educating our children, on securing our borders, on conducting groundbreaking research. More than ever, it’s possible to imagine a government of, …
On February 4, 2010, pushing for passage of her pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) legislation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on the House floor: “When I became Speaker of the House, the very first day we passed legislation that made PAYGO the rule of the House. Today we will make it the law of the land. … So the time is long overdue for this to be taken for granted. The federal government will pay as it goes.” That was the promise. But here is the reality: in the three years that …
Over the past decade, federal spending has leaped 62 percent faster than inflation, to more than $30,000 per household. Not content with this expansion of government, President Obama’s budget would push inflation-adjusted spending to nearly $37,000 per household by the end of this decade. This would create sustained trillion-dollar budget deficits, likely followed by European-sized tax hikes. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has proposed a commonsense approach to avoid such ruinous spending hikes. The Saving America’s Future Economy (SAFE) Act of 2010 would limit the annual growth of government to the …
Liberals are up in arms because Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) is blocking a bill that would extend unemployment benefits, extend health insurance subsidies (COBRA), extend highway funding, increase Medicare reimbursement rates for physicians (Doc Fix), extend a temporary “flood insurance” program and continue aid for small business programs. The bill, H.R. 4691, was introduced and passed the House on February 25th by a voice vote. When the bill came up in the Senate, Sen. Bunning objected and requested a vote to offset the estimated $10 billion cost of this bill …
Just last week Congress revived PAYGO legislation which is supposed to force legislators to offset any new spending with spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. While this won’t come as a shock to most Foundry readers, The Hill reports that “the ink is barely dry on the pay-as-you-go law, and Democrats are seeking to bypass it to enact parts of their job-creation agenda.” The problem with PAYGO is not its intent–serious efforts to reduce the deficit should be met with genuine interest by all conservatives–the problem is its inevitable implementation. …
Senate Cloakroom: Analysis: The Senate returns this week after a three-week absence. In the wake of passing an unpopular health care bill, the Senators must now contend with another unpopular issue – increasing the nation’s debt limit by nearly $1 trillion. The debate, which is expected to last into next week, will highlight our looming entitlement crisis, excessive spending and the increasingly aggressive involvement of government in our economy. Major Floor Action: A vote on Beverly Martin to be a US Circuit Court judge will kick off what is likely …
Congress wants America to believe its new promises to control spending even as it reneges on its old promises and spends more than ever. The “new” promise within health care reform bills is to reduce Medicare spending by hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet simultaneously, Congress is reversing 1997 legislation that claimed it would reduce Medicare spending. The latest example of hypocrisy is known in Washington as the “doc fix,” (shorthand for fixing payment rates to doctors) and it’s scheduled for a House of Representatives vote next week. Doctors have …
