Michael F. Cannon
Michael F. Cannon
As the United States government barrels toward a debt crisis, both House and Senate Republicans seem content to keep forcing taxpayers to overpay for low-quality health care. Senate Republicans especially are blindfolding the passengers while slamming on the gas.
Former President Biden went on a health care spending spree. He created Obamacare premium subsidies for households earning up to $600,000 per year. He opened the floodgates to improper enrollment in Obamacare. He increased Medicare spending by 14 percent and Medicaid spending by 20 percent over the pre-Biden baseline—that is, new spending above and beyond the typical year-to-year increases. The House Republicans’ budget might at least reduce annual growth in Medicaid spending from 6 percent to 3 percent; by the 10th year of the budget window, it might just barely eliminate the Medicaid portion of the Biden Bump.
The Senate GOP budget is an effort to rescue Biden’s spending spree. Obamacare subsidies for those earning up to $600,000 would stay. Biden‘s Medicaid and Medicare spending increases would stay. And Senate Republicans would accomplish all this through what is perhaps the largest, most dishonest, and most shameful budget gimmick in US history.
Decades ago, Congress enacted budget rules to prevent runaway deficits. But no Congress can bind future Congresses. Profligate legislators have rewritten those rules, including by subterfuge. The result is a record federal debt equal in size to the entire US economy, which Congress increases by another 6 percent of GDP each year.
The Senate GOP budget would rescue Joe Biden’s spending spree. But Senate Republicans don’t want to face accountability for that decision. So they devised a novel and massive subterfuge that would enable them to pass their irresponsible budget with fewer votes and would effectively throw all congressional budget rules out the window.
Their subterfuge is literally to pretend that tax and spending laws that Congress has already passed aren’t real. » Read More
https://www.cato.org/blog/senate-gop-deploys-dishonest-budget-gimmick-dodge-accountability-rescuing-bidens-spending
