On Fox, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Stephen Moore claimed that one reason
the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the health care reform reconciliation
package reduces the deficit is because it scored "10 years of revenue ... but only six years of
spending," adding that "if you match up the cost with the revenues, I think most analysts believe
that this is a revenue loser." In fact, CBO estimated that the bill will continue to lower the
deficit after 2019, long after all the spending has kicked in.
Moore falsely claims "if you match up the cost with the revenues," the bill "is a revenue
loser"
Moore claims spending and revenue "mismatch" kept bill from looking like a "revenue
loser." From the March 18 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van
Susteren:
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN (host): How do they say we're going to pay for this?
MOORE: OK. So, first of all, this is roughly a trillion -- let's just round it to about a
trillion dollars over the next 10 years. But, remember, this runs into the problem we talked
about a couple weeks ago that it's -- the way that CBO has scored it: 10 years of revenues,
Greta, but only six years of spending. So, it's a mismatch.
VAN SUSTEREN: OK. All right, so, for 10 years we're going to be paying for it, but we don't get
10 years of services?
MOORE: Right. We get six years.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right.
MOORE: That's one way they keep the deficit down because they don't start spending until the
year's out.
VAN SUSTEREN: But they start collecting.
MOORE: Right. And so, actually --
VAN SUSTEREN: That's like going -- that's like making a car payment for four years but they don't
deliver the car for four years.
MOORE: Well put. I like that analogy, and --
VAN SUSTEREN: And so you sit there and wait.
MOORE: And so, in fact, if you match up the cost with the revenues, I think most analysts believe
that this is a revenue loser.
VAN SUSTEREN: I think that's silly the way they do that.
CBO projected deficit reductions would continue after 2019
CBO: Senate bill yields "a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion" over 10
years. On March 18, CBO released its preliminary
estimate of the effect of the combined effect of the Senate bill and reconciliation proposal
on the federal budget. It found:
CBO and JCT estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation -- H.R. 3590 and the reconciliation
proposal -- would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion over the 2010-2019
period.
CBO: Over second 10 years, reconciliation bill would save "around one-half percent of
GDP." CBO also estimated savings for the decade following the 2010-2019 period:
Therefore, CBO has developed a rough outlook for the decade following the 2010-2019 period by
grouping the elements of the legislation into broad categories and (together with the staff of
the Joint Committee on Taxation) assessing the rate at which the budgetary impact of each of
those broad categories is likely to increase over time.
[...]
Using that same analytic approach, the combined effect of enacting H.R. 3590 and the
reconciliation bill would also be to reduce federal budget deficits over the ensuing decade
relative to those projected under current law -- with a total effect during that decade that is
in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP.
Recommandations
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
