House Republicans are setting up the biggest sham in the history of this nation. Faced with the prospect of breaking their own rules in their attempt to kill health care reform, they were ignoring that to do so will cost well over $100 billion in the first ten years and billions in the next ten. How were they going to pay for it? The method they are choosing is the most disingenuous I have seen. They are killing the CBO and replacing it with one proven liar.
Congressional Democrats, removed from their rhetorical shackles by the coming Republican control of the House, are accusing the GOP of resorting to "Enron-type accounting" in their efforts to push legislation in the next Congress.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the incoming ranking member of the House Budget Committee, warned on Tuesday that Republican leadership is set to implement new rules that would effectively do away with the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO is often regarded as a nonpartisan, independent scorekeeper for Congress. And by taking away its input in legislative matters, Van Hollen said, Republicans were ushering in an era of make-your-own-reality-based budgeting.
"This is a huge loophole for Enron-type accounting … In the rule they pass tomorrow they are going to reiterate that the chair of the budget committee has the authority to come up with his own estimate of the budget impact of various pieces of legislation," Van Hollen told the Huffington Post. "And a week from now, when they get around to repealing health care reform I think you will see they will go down and say this has zero cost impact."
"It is a wholesale disregard of CBO estimates," Van Hollen added. "After all, CBO is the one referee we have around here when it comes to the budget. So again, we are watching this unfold. But it does seem that they are putting in place the pieces to allow the Chairman of the Budget committee to literally make up the numbers as they go."… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Common Dreams>
The proven liar, in this case, is Paul Ryan (R-WI). Ryan’s priorities are cutting social security, cutting Medicare, cutting Medicaid, and cutting taxes for millionaires and billionaires. Under the new Republican House Rules, this may can determing how much any bill will cost or save by fiat.
11 Responses to “Republicans Kill the CBO”
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Enron accounting from Goppers? I’m shocked. I say.
Sure you are. 😈
Oh, this sounds like fun – not. WTF? 😡
Exactly. It’s such obvious abuse of power that it’s shocking, but the MSM is not touching this aspect of it or its implications.
the current administration is no better. cheney said it deficits don’t matter. both democrats and republicans (at least most of them ) believe this. example tax cuts, tarp, loan guarantees amounting to untold trillions,obama’s 70 billion for nuclear, the health care reform that creates too big to fail insurance companies, and on and on. the idea seems to make the citizens of the united states impoverished.
John, Obama’s health care bill cut the deficit.
tomcat, re. healthcare bill cutd deficit. supposedly, but; what happens when through mismanagement or malfeseance a private health insurance company is in danger of bankruptcy? since, the health care reform mandates a citizen must purchase health insurance from a private insurance company the federal government will be legally and morally obligated to make good on these policies. this will happen. it is interesting to look into the ownership of these insurance companies. you will find out that the vast majority of these companies are owned by the same banks, and funds that precipitated the so called economic meltdown. also, credible estimates of the number of uninsured americans put the number at fifty million; obama says the reform will insure thirty million. what about the other twenty million? i believe that deficit reduction by the health care reform are based upon massaged numbers. prices for health insurance will not go down as there is no mandate for these companies to lower their prices; since, the federal government will subsidize insurance for some of the thirty million mandated to purchase the insurance, and there will still be twenty million uninsured, at the same time that there is no mechanism to lower insurance or healthcare costs, it is not credible to claim deficit reductions from this bill. this bill raises costs for the government and the citizens. john
You’re basing that argument on some pretty big assumptions, John. Health Insurance is one of the most profitable sectors out there, but of a company goes under, people can simply start paying premiums and getting coverage from other companies, which cannot exclude them if they have preexisting conditions.
tomcat, the point is that with rising health insurance costs and no effective cost constraints there is no way that this bill can cut the deficit. the healthcare bill encourages rising health care costs; the only nod at cost constraints is that insurance companies can only take a fixed percentage of income as profit. the way the insurance companies will get around this is to raise prices.; example, if an aspirin at a hospital costs one dollar and you can only profit thirty percent, you get thirty cents, now if that same aspirin costs one hundred dollars, you get thirty dollars. what do think these health insurance companies will want? the main reason health care is unaffordable for most citizens is the insurance companies. then there are also for profit hospitals, gouging pharmeceutical companies, and even greedy doctors. these all get protected and benefit from the health care bill. the citizens get a mandate to purchase insurance, and a vague promise of subsidies. the citizen’s government is relegated to being the collection agency for the insurance companies. the entire action still only covers sixty per cent of the uninsured. there was no good reason for this bill to be this way. democrats, and i am one, have been just as guilty as republicans in creating deficits, with most of the money going to the wealthy, and with little benefit to the citizen. to a certain extent, today, there appears to be no difference between the major political parties. we even insure the investments of the wealthy. we base our economic policy on “the markets”, which, are for profit enterprises not even wholly owned by united states citizens; example, the new york stock exchange is owned by a company called euronext. according to the commerce department statistical abstract only seventeen per cent of americans directly own stock. we call the economy “in recovery” even as more and more citizens go into poverty. we, the democratic party have not done our job. john
John, the one restraint against that, albeit a weak one, is that insurance firms who jack up the prices as you suggest can be excluded from the exchanges. However I agree that in both HCR and financial reform, we did only half the job because Obama started negotiating from the center and caved to the right.