United Liberty

The Congressional Budget Office has released it’s estimate for the latest version of ObamaCare:

The Democratic health care bill would cost $940 billion over 10 years and cut the federal deficit over the next two decades – figures that should help ease the worries of fiscal hawks who have been reluctant about supporting the sweeping measure.

The bill would reduce the deficit by about $130 billion in the first 10 years, and by $1.2 trillion over the second 10 years. It will expand coverage to 95 percent of Americans, according to Congressional Budget Office figures released Thursday by House Democrats.

The numbers allow Democrats to push ahead with a vote Sunday, even as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) continues to search for the 216 votes needed for passage.

“We’re on track for a Sunday vote,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters.

Of course, if you believe that these numbers are even close to what the actual cost of this program is going to be, or that the deficit savings are anything but mythical, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

But, this means the process moves forward. The next step will be to see what the House Rules Committee decides to do.

UPDATE:  Below is a copy of the actual analysis from the CBO.

Republicans started Wednesday off with 37 Democrats firmly against or leaning against voting for ObamaCare. That number dropped to 36 after Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) traded his vote for a ride on Air Force One, or as someone said on Twitter, a chance to sit in the “big boy chair.”

Kucinich had been firmly against the bill because he supports a single payer, government run system. No doubt he got reassurances from President Barack Obama, who has said that his plan is another step in that direction.

Other vote counts indicate that Republicans are still in the game. Byron York counts 209 members against the bill, 204 in support of it and only 18 undecided members. The count over at Fire Dog Lake is 209 against and 205 in favor.

One thing is clear, the only thing bipartisan about this vote is the opposition.

Who are the undecided members?

Here is a list of members that may be sitting on the fence. Some of them probably know how they are voting and are trying to get some thing out of the reconciliation package or a project in some other bill.

Just call these members.

Marc Ambinder notes that when it comes to reducing the size of government, there’s fairly solid evidence that most Republicans in Congress aren’t walking the walk:

Paul Ryan is the Republican idea man of the hour. Karl Rove endorsed Ryan’s approach to budget reform on Glenn Beck, and whenever Republicans are asked about their preferred alternatives to the administration’s deficit reduction intentions, Ryan’s name and proposals are offered up. Hey, Republicans have ideas too. We don’t need health care reform to reduce the deficit — at least not yet.

So prominent Republicans  — particularly those running for president and those who aren’t elected officials — love Paul Ryan when it’s convenient. Why is it, then, that only twelve members of the conference were willing to attach their names to his bill — and none from the leadership? One reason is that Ryan is introducing it in his capacity as a member — not as the ranking member of the budget committee.

The other reason? Maybe they don’t want to be associated with what is a pretty far-ranging radical proposal:

House and Senate Democrats got some bad news today as the Senate parliamentarian said that the House would have to pass the Senate version of ObamaCare and have it signed into law by the president before a fix could be pushed through via reconciliation:

The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday.

The Senate Parliamentarian’s Office was responding to questions posed by the Republican leadership. The answers were provided verbally, sources said.

House Democratic leaders have been searching for a way to ensure that any move they make to approve the Senate-passed $871 billion health care reform bill is followed by Senate action on a reconciliation package of adjustments to the original bill. One idea is to have the House and Senate act on reconciliation prior to House action on the Senate’s original health care bill.

Despite the parliamentarian’s ruling, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) doesn’t seem to have any concern about pressing ahead with reconciliation.

Veronique de Rugy shows estimated budget deficits from Congressional Budget Office, which shows a $9.8 trillion shortfall over the next ten years, compared to White House projections.

Doug Elmendorf, head of the Congressional Budget Office, is warning that lawmakers must change course on fiscal policy:

In a presentation delivered before the National Association for Business Economics, Mr. Elmendorf noted that the choices needed to address the medium and long-term budget deficit will be “larger and more fundamental” than in the past.

“U.S. fiscal policy is on an unsustainable path that can’t be resolved through minor tinkering,” he said. “The problem posed by the federal budget deficit not at its current level but on this trajectory… poses a growing risk to the recovery.”
[…]
In addition, the debt held by the public with current tax policies extended would soar to 90% of GDP by 2020, Mr. Elmendorf said, making the U.S. public debt load one of the world’s highest.

“The U.S. is entering unfamiliar territory in its level of public debt,” said Mr. Elmendorf. “It will be larger over the next decade than it’s been in half a century… and also unfamiliar by the standards of other developed countries.” The choice is not whether to change course from current policy, he noted, but “how quickly and in what way.” President Barack Obama has already declared a spending freeze on discretionary, nonessential outlays, but that only amounts to roughly 17% of total spending. Much of the rest of federal spending is for entitlement programs including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, defense spending and interest payments on the federal debt.

The size of U.S. entitlement programs has grown sharply since 1970, from 3.8% of GDP to 8.2% as of 2007, and is expected to hit 11.1% of GDP by 2020 thanks to an aging population of Baby Boomers and fewer workers in the system to help pay for their benefits.

The Congressional Budget Office is out with it’s latest analysis of President Obama’s budget, and the news isn’t good at all:

President Obama’s policies would add more than $9.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, congressional budget analysts said Friday, including more than $2 trillion that Obama proposes to devote to extending a variety of tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration.

The 10-year outlook by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is somewhat gloomier than White House projections, which found that Obama’s policies would add $8.5 trillion to the debt by 2020. While the two agencies are in relative agreement about the short-term budget picture, with both predicting a deficit of about $1.5 trillion this year and $1.3 trillion in 2011, the CBO is less optimistic about future years, predicting that deficits will grow rapidly after 2015

Under these projections, the National Debt would exceed $ 20,000,000,000,000 by 2020.

Here’s a chart to make the matter even more clear:

From the Heritage Foundation, here is a look at projected budget deficits over the next ten years. Interestingly, the Obama Administration over shoots projects from the baseline set by the Congressional Budget Office, which almost always a generous estimate.

According to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office shows the stimulus bill passed by Congress will now cost $75 billion more (from $787 billion to $862 billion) than taxpayers were originally told by the Obama Administration and the Democratic leadership in Congress.

Here is the story from CNN:

I noted yesterday that the budget reductions in the Congressional Budget Office’s latest score of ObamaCare were, according to their own report, “subject to substantial uncertainty.” It seems that the CBO is already backing away from their estimates:

The Congressional Budget Office said Sunday that the Senate health care bill would not reduce long-term federal deficits as much as previously estimated, acknowledging that it made an “error” in its original analysis.

CBO Director Doug Elmendorf wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that while the correction has no bearing on estimates for the impact of the bill over the next decade, it does slightly reduce the amount of money the plan is expected to save for the 2020-2029 period.

The original estimate said the health care overhaul would yield deficit reductions worth about one-half percent of GDP — the revision put that figure between one-quarter and one-half percent.

He also wrote that savings from Medicare cuts and changes would add up to about 10 to 15 percent per year in that period, compared with the 15 percent savings in the original projection.

Elmendorf said the legislation should still reduce budget deficits after 2019 — but just not as much.

Medicare cuts will never happen. Write it down now. When it comes to reducing entitlement spending, Congress almost never acts. There will be no reductions in deficits from this bill.