NEOAVATARA

c/o Michael Ramirez, IBD

You know things are bad when Colin Powell is worried.

This week, as the budgetary numbers started coming in worse than ever, unemployment continues its rise, and Obama’s own budget director is pulling random numbers from the air about how many jobs Obama has ’saved’, Obama started talking about PAYGO, in order to cut the deficit.

How stupid does Barack Obama think we are?

Let us look back for a second.  Obama had a terrible economy when he came in, definitely.  But let us look at the things that he himself is responsible for:  Stimulus, TARP 2, increased discretionary spending.  Now, add that to increased spending on the environment and of course health care…well, Obama may not own the economy yet, but this is MR. OBAMA’S BUDGET DEFICIT.

President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008.  And note to my liberal friends: that includes spending on Iraq and Afghanistan.   Setting aside 2009 (for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt), President Obama would add $4.9 trillion to the debt by 2016…and that does NOT include health care.  If you include 2009 and take out the $700 billion that Bush is responsible for  (TARP), that would mean that Obama, from now until 2016, has increased the debt by at least $6.8 trillion.

And that is just the part Obama is responsible for, without health care and the environment.

Now, when Obama starts talking about PAYGO…that is like talking about closing the barn door after the horse is gone.  We are already in a huge hole, and he proposes not to dig the hole further.  Great.

But even that is false.  He excluded the big 800lb gorilla in the room, health care.  How bad are the numbers on health care?  Well, traditionally Congressional accounting standards state that you must use the Congressional Budget Office  (CBO) numbers.  Democrats are considering using the White House numbers, which are far less reliable and much more politically invested.

Even the CBO numbers are a mess.  Most private predictions have said that health care reform would add an additional $1.5 trillion to the debt over 10 years…and remember these numbers are always (ALWAYS!) wrong to the upside.   I will bet my first born that it will cost more than predicted.  Now, that averages out to about $150 billion a year…which Obama has no way of paying for if PAYGO is enacted.

From my own estimates, and other health care experts, the number is much higher.  If you use a conservative number, such as $2,400 per capita to pay for insurance (this is on the very low end), and you assume that there are 45 million unininsured, then the cost would be $108 billion a year.  But the problem is that there is at least another 55-70 million underinsured in this country, that either don’t get insurance from their employer or their employer insurance is terrible.  Those people, almost certainly, would fall into any government plan. Assuming that half of their expenditures would be covered in one manner or another, the total cost to cover the underinsurend and uninsured per year is $192 billion.

And remember, that is a very conservative estimate of annual per capita costs and funding of the uninsured.  In reality, that is all a false assumption. Health care costs, initially, will increase with health care reform.  Why?  Because the uninsured now will have access to free care…and many will use that care.  Therefore, the per capita estimates, using current standards, are completely false.  Even if this group of people increases their visits to doctors (preventative or otherwise) by 20% (which I think is a very low number), that would mean the annual health care bill would go to at least $230 billion, or double what Obama himself is estimating.

Thus, PAYGO is just a political ploy.  Basically, I bet you that the only thing PAYGO will be enforced on is the military budget, and little else.

Now…after all that, here is the worst part. The CBO disagrees with itself and the Obama Administration.  Obama and the CBO had at least agreed that health costs were the bulk of the problem in expenditures.  However, a new CBO report says that the problem is NOT health care, but a more simple problem:  that more and more people are obtaining benefits, while less and less people are paying into the system.  Duh.

If Obama really is interested in the budget deficit, he would put off major long term programs like Obamacare.  The fact is, he doesn’t give a damn about the budget.  His primary goal is his liberal agenda.  You will notice that the debt Obama talks about does not include things such as fixing Medicare (which will start going broke in 2017) or Social Security reform (which is a disaster waiting to happen).  So in reality, Obama is not concerned about this at all.  The budget deficit…well, that will be for the next President to deal with.