Obama’s March of Folly
Dr. Marvin J. Folkertsma, FloydReports.com
The budget deficits from the first two years of the Obama administration are of sufficient magnitude to spring Dr. “Billions and Billions” Carl Sagan from his grave. Sagan could sue for copyright infringement for misuse of astronomical numbers.
On second thought, the figures now being bandied about are in the trillions, which no doubt would send the venerable atheist skulking back, perhaps muttering something about the “unsustainability” of it all.
Sagan would not be alone. Multi-trillion dollar deficits that generate debt obligations in the hundreds of trillions of dollars cannot continue even in the short run, at least not without that Fifth Horseman of Apocalypse—picture Darth Vader toting a wheel barrow filled with worthless script—showing up to hiss questions about the insanity of those who led America on its “March of Folly.”
Barbara Tuchman wondered the same thing in a book published with that name, in which she probed the mentalities and policies of political leaders who led their countries to destruction—and here’s the kicker—fully aware of what they were doing but not willing to stop themselves from doing it. More specifically, averred Tuchman, to qualify as “folly” a policy….
The Gift of Lies on ObamaCare’s First Birthday
Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
House Democrats held a birthday party last week for passage of the health-care law. Just as we looked at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s floor speech noting the milestone, we will now examine some of the claims made by Democrats…
“It’s about jobs. Does it create jobs? Health insurance reform creates 4 million jobs, and in the last 12 months the private sector has added 1.5 million new jobs, and of that a quarter of a million were in the health insurance industry.”
— Pelosi
Here, Pelosi is repeating a talking point from the health-care debate. The 4 million figure comes from a report by the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning group, which estimated that universal health care would add 250,000 to 400,000 jobs a year. Pelosi took the top end of the range and then multiplied it by 10, a numerical sleight-of-hand that Polifact last year labeled “half true.”
A Pelosi spokesman noted she has been using this statistic for 14 months now, but we frown on the reuse of statistics previously found to be suspect.
In this case, since the bill has passed, the Congressional Budget Office has done its own analysis (the one McConnell cited) that cast some doubt on the CAP analysis, written before the bill was passed into law. Presumably, members of Congress should pay more attention to estimates by their own budget agency than think tanks that promote their agenda. Repeating this dubious statistic is worth at least a Pinocchio or two. (About our rating scale)
The second half of her statement comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but it doesn’t really mean anything. Health-care jobs have long been an important part of new private-sector jobs, so 260,000 being created in the last 12 months is not out of the ordinary. For example, BLS figures show that in 2007, there were 381,000 health care jobs created; in 2006, 324,000 jobs; and in 2005, 271,000 jobs. The CAP study was not making any prediction about health-care jobs, but all jobs, so it is unclear what point Pelosi is making with this statistic.
“It’s about reducing the deficit. Again, it reduces the deficit more than $1 trillion over the life of the bill.”
— Pelosi
This is another bogus statistic for which we have previously awarded three Pinocchios.
The CBO estimated $143 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years in the health-care law, but about $19 billion of it came from unrelated items. As we have noted, the remaining $124 billion was based on a number of assumptions that called that estimate into question.
But Pelosi claims more than $1 trillion in deficit reduction by using a 20-year figure that is particularly absurd.
As we wrote in January: “There are too many uncertainties to be precise, and the CBO itself merely offered a tentative guess of a “broad range of around one-half percent of GDP,” with significant caveats. Democrats simply took that percentage, multiplied it against the predicted size of the GDP 20 years from now (itself a pretty fuzzy figure) and, presto, they had a number. But it’s a fairly meaningless one.”
CBO ups Obamacare cost projections by $115 Billion
By JENNIFER HABERKORN, Politico
Congressional Budget Office estimates released Tuesday predict the health care overhaul will likely cost about $115 billion more in discretionary spending over ten years than the original cost projections.
The additional spending — if approved over the years by Congress — would bring the total estimated cost of the overhaul to about $1 trillion.
The Congressional Budget Office expects the federal agencies to spend $10 billion to $20 billion over 10 years on administrative costs to implement the overhaul. The CBO expects Congress to spend an additional $105 billion over 10 years to fund discretionary programs in the overhaul.
The CBO released the estimates in response to a request from California Rep. Jerry Lewis, ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. A spokeswoman for Lewis said the inquiry was filed before the House voted on the bill.
“[L]arge sums of discretionary spending in both the House and Senate versions of the health care reform bills have not yet been included in estimates by the CBO, rendering it impossible to make informed decisions regarding the outcome of this legislation,” Lewis wrote in a February letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asking her to postpone votes until the discretionary spending analysis was complete.
