Just as Congress passed the largest tax on tobacco in remembered history during the heated Stimulus bill debate, the same thing is happening for Cap and Trade legislation. Pelosi is trying to push Cap and Trade to a vote this week so I urge everyone to contact their representatives and let them know how you feel about such a tax. Remember these costs will be passed on to the consumer.
If I may use Congress’ tactic though, I actually wanted to write more about healthcare today. I did not watch the Obama infomercial last night, and by all accounts that is what it turned into despite ABC’s ‘best efforts’. I did see some of his answers though. It was nothing new really, more vague answers to some pretty direct questions. Cost was a big topic of course. One man asked who would pay for it and where the money would come from. The answer was…
“We will have some up-front costs…And the estimates … have been anywhere from a trillion to $2 trillion. But what I have said is whatever it is we do, we pay for.” And then “About a third of the costs will come from new revenue,” And then “(CBO) doesn’t count all of the savings that may come from prevention, may come from eliminating all of the paperwork and bureaucracy because we have put forward health IT.”
First you notice he did not really answer the question. The correct answer is the taxpayer and with more tax increases…and a little deficit spending. I did get a kick out of him saying costs would be reduced by eliminating paperwork and bureaucracy. Government involvement is bureaucracy and paperwork. I am not really a speech kind of guy though. I am more into facts and numbers. So here are some that I stole from the Republican Conference at GOP.gov.
852 - Pages in the bill
120 million - Number of individuals who could lose their current coverage as a result of the government-run plan reimbursing at Medicare rates created in the bill, according to non-partisan actuaries at the Lewin Group
4.7 million - Number of jobs that could be lost as a result of taxes on businesses that cannot afford to provide health insurance coverage, according to a model developed by Council of Economic Advisors Chair Christina Romer
$88,200 - Definition of “low-income” family of four for purposes of health insurance subsidies
Trillions - New federal spending, which likely could exceed the $1.6 trillion reported price tag of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Baucus’ legislation
32 - Entitlement programs the bill creates, expands, or extends
48 - Additional offices, bureaus, commissions, programs, and bureaucracies the bill creates over and above the entitlement programs listed above
1,367 - Uses of the word “shall,” representing new duties to be carried out by federal bureaucrats and mandates on individuals, businesses, and States
$10 billion - Minimum loss sustained by taxpayers every year due to Medicare fraud; the government- run health plan utilizes the same ineffective anti-fraud statutes and procedures that have kept Medicare on the Government Accountability Office’s list of high-risk programs for two decades
$1.75 billion - Mandatory spending on home visitation services that would educate parents on “skills to interact with their child”
Zero - Prohibitions on government programs like Medicare and Medicaid from using cost-effectiveness research to impose delays to or denials for access to life-saving treatments
2017 - Year Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted - a date unchanged by the legislation, which re-directs savings from Medicare to finance new entitlements for younger Americans
The numbers do not look good even if you simply look at the increase of government alone. This debate has once again turned into a debate over the basic political philosophy of liberals and conservatives. Between liberals who believe that more government involvement is the answer to all of our problems and conservatives who favor our founding fathers concept of limited government. It is the never ending problem of how to solve ‘economic mal-distribution’. With hard work, or with handouts.
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