Costs Bend Upward

IBD Editorials ^ | December 15, 2010 | Staff

[Kaslin]

Fiscal Policy: Democrats insist that spending cuts won't erase the budget deficit, but they're wrong. Places to cut abound, starting with a big piece of ObamaCare.

Earlier this week, a federal judge in Virginia ruled that the individual mandate requiring uninsured Americans to buy health care coverage is unconstitutional. But even before that opinion came down, the Congressional Budget Office had said the individual mandate is too costly.

Well, not exactly "too costly." What the CBO said is that between 2014, the first real year of ObamaCare, and 2020, eliminating the individual mandate would lower the deficit by $252 billion.

The CBO report had been gathering dust until Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., shrewdly brought it back Tuesday after U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled a day earlier that the individual mandate was outside Congress' constitutional authority.

Supposedly, the individual mandate was going to be the key to controlling health care costs. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder were clinging to this nonsense as late as Tuesday in an op-ed published in the Washington Post. But like most stories about government spending, it has turned out to be a myth.

After taking a shot to the head in court Monday and a body blow from the CBO report, ObamaCare supporters might well start wondering what will next befall their individual mandate. An answer may come as early as Thursday, when U.S. District Court Judge Robert Vinson rules from Pensacola, Fla., on a constitutional challenge similar to the one Hudson took up in Virginia.

[SonOfDarkSkies]

Okay Catboys...round em up. Herd those cats up and head them down into the valley below.

Yeeehaaa!

Bend that cost curve down as we go!!!

[EGPWS]

Democrats insist that spending cuts won't erase the budget deficit,...

Of course only massive spending programs are our only hope for budget equilibrium.

Whether it be pork barrel or flat out social wealth transfer.

[Cobra64]

To start with, pick the low hanging fruit until the politicians actually compete and develop a cost cutting frenzy.

Earmarks

UN

All foreign aid

All farm subsidies

.

It's like slicing a carrot.

.

Down the drain:

[Nervous Tick]

>> Bend that cost curve down as we go!!!

Yeah, I think we all *know* just who got bent over on that cost curve thing.

[bt_dooftlook]

Absolutely concur about foreign aid. How the Chinese must be sniggering about Americans borrowing money to give to other countries!

[arthurus]

Obamacare.
The Department of Energy.
Most other Departments other than the original four.
Medicaire.
Medicaid.
Social Security.Cut them OFF.
End them all and all their components and programs.
That is a start.