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from Rolfe Winkler:
A healthcare failure could save Obama
The rising costs of Medicare and Medicaid threaten to destroy the nation's fiscal future, but President Obama is pushing for healthcare reform that would increase costs. Instead, he should refocus his presidency on paying down debt.
America's obligations over the next 75 years now surpass $62 trillion, up 8 percent since last year. And a new report released today by the Peterson Foundation suggests that total will go even higher if the House's health care legislation is passed.
(Click table to enlarge in new window)
With today's pliant bond market, it's easy to pretend we can have things that can't be paid for. But that's the kind of attitude that led California into the fiscal abyss. We have to get serious about bringing our expenses in line with our income. Now.
Unfortunately Republicans and Democrats alike are more concerned with winning elections than passing good public policy. Republicans told us "deficits don't matter," signed a prescription drug benefit for Medicare that created a bigger fiscal hole than Social Security, waged two very expensive wars financed with debt, and borrowed to bail out banks.
Debt on autopilot
At first glance this week’s budget projections paint President Obama as a spendthrift. The White House itself offered a grim glimpse of a future in which U.S. debt more than doubles to $17.5 trillion in a decade — an increase of nearly $10 trillion.
Merely servicing the U.S. debt will cost more than America currently spends on either defense or social security.
Deficit hypocrisy
There’s something scary about big numbers. It’s one reason we in the media often like to put the biggest number we can find into a headline.
So it was no surprise that most media outlets went gaga over the Obama administration’s projection that the nation’s debt will grow by $9 trillion over the next decade. And sure enough, critics of the administration’s efforts to reform healthcare were quick to seize on that scary number as another reason to advocate doing nothing.
from Rolfe Winkler:
Latest Biden gaffe illuminates spending absurdity
Personally, I like Joe Biden's verbal gaffes. They tend to throw public policy problems into stark relief. Today, he's reported to have uttered the following at an AARP town hall meeting on health care spending:
“Well, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, I’m telling you.”
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The Wall
