Free Republic

So much for the idea that the new healthcare proposal -- which we don't think is anywhere close to getting at the root of the program -- will allow us to save money. The non-partisan CBO has slammed the bill, saying it will increase costs and weaken the economy. Ouch! This is actually really surprising, since just a few days ago there were reports about how the CBO was set to give Pelosicare a really good score. Jonathan Cohn of TNR had this "Exclusive" just three days ago: A lot of conservative Democrats, not to mention Republicans, express two big...

Over the past few weeks the Democrats have re-energized their quest to ram a healthcare bill down the throats of the American People before their summer break in August. Why the rush? The party knows that members of the lower house will face severe opposition to the program when they return home to their districts, and God-forbid the Obama agenda be slowed down just because it goes against the will of the people. Much of the concern about Obamacare is the effect the bill will have on the economy, the increase in federal bureaucracy and deficit and the corresponding leap...

Instead of saving the federal government from fiscal catastrophe, the health reform measures being drafted by congressional Democrats would worsen an already bleak budget outlook, increasing deficit projections and driving the nation more deeply into debt, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this morning. Under questioning by members of the Senate Budget Committee, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose "the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a signficant amount." "On the contrary," Elmendorf said,...

Instead of saving the federal government from fiscal catastrophe, the health reform measures being drafted by congressional Democrats would worsen an already bleak budget outlook, increasing deficit projections and driving the nation more deeply into debt, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this morning.

Here's a blow to President Obama and Democrats pressing health care reform. One of the main arguments made by the President and others for investing in health reform now is that it will save the federal government money in the long run by containing costs. Turns out that may not be the case, according to Doug Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Answering questions from Democrat Kent Conrad of North Dakota at a hearing of the Senate Budget Committee today, Elmendorf said CBO does not see health care cost savings in either of the partisan Democratic bills currently...

Remember last week when the media touted a new cost estimate by the Congressional Budget Office suggesting that Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee had found a magic want enabling them to cover 97 percent of the uninsured for $600 billion? Well, we now know that the cost is more like $1.1 trillion, and likely higher. As I cautioned when the CBO numbers came out last week, the $600 billion estimate did not include the price of massively expanding Medicaid, a costly provision of all of the various Democratic health care proposals. But now the CBO...

President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. CBO...said the House and Senate bills will...[lead] to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing. (emphasis added)

This past Monday, while selling his health care plan President Barack Obama told the American Medical Association: “No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.” The Congressional Budget Office disagrees. Their preliminary analysis of an incomplete Democratic health plan estimated that 10 million people would have to seek new insurance because their...

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that the latest cost estimates for Democrats' health care overhaul amount to a "death blow" to calls for a government-run plan. The influential South Carolina Republican was responding to estimates this past week from the Congressional Budget Office, which tagged one plan at $1.5 trillion over 10 years and another at $1 trillion over 10 years. Though many experts anticipated a comprehensive health care overhaul would cost about $1 trillion, the CBO predicted that the latter plan would only cover 16 million uninsured -- or about one-third of those who currently lack coverage. Graham said...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy will likely start growing again in the second half of this year but unemployment will likely keep rising through 2010 to peak over 10 percent, the Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday. "The growth in output later this year and next year is likely to be sufficiently weak that the unemployment rate will probably continue to rise into the second half of next year and peak above 10 percent," CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf said in prepared testimony to the U.S. House Budget Committee. It will likely take several years for the unemployment rate to...

President Obama may be determined to use the current economic crisis as an excuse for "Obamanomics" to transform the United States into the world's largest socialist state. Data emerging from the Congressional Budget Office and various international agencies, including the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, or OECD, indicate the Obama administration's $3.6 trillion federal budget will dramatically increase government spending as a percentage of gross domestic product, or GDP, on a scale that rivals even the European Union social welfare states of France, Great Britain and Germany.

With a bit of bookkeeping legerdemain borrowed from the Bush administration, the Democratic Congress is about to perform a cover-up on the most serious threat to America's economic future. That threat is not the severe recession, tough as that is for the families and businesses struggling to make ends meet. In time, the recession will end, and last week's stock market performance hinted that we may not have to wait years for the recovery to begin. The real threat is the monstrous debt resulting from the slump in revenue and the staggering sums being committed by Washington to rescuing embattled...

The Congressional Budget Office released a report March 20 that stated President Barack Obama’s budget would result in annual deficits averaging more than $900 billion for the next 10 years. The CBO reported the new official current-law baseline produces a 10-year deficit of $4.4 trillion, which is about $1.3 trillion worse than the January forecast (due to a newly enacted legislation – $1.3 trillion for the stimulus package – and a deteriorating revenue base – a loss of $1.3 trillion). More importantly, the national debt officially surpassed the $11 trillion mark. Former President George W. Bush was no free market...

House and Senate Democratic leaders are looking to pass the Obama administration's $3.6 trillion federal budget for 2010 by the end of next week, but the lawmakers under them should take into account the shocking deficit impact and fight to reign in the proposal. We're not holding our breath that they will do so, despite the immense deficit predictions announced Friday by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO has projected the initiatives proposed in President Obama's budget would increase the deficit to over $1.8 trillion this year. That is 13.1 percent of GDP and significantly more than the already...

The huge economic stimulus package that President Obama signed into law Tuesday will result in “lower wages” for American workers, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The CBO analysis, dated Feb. 11 and sent to Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), says the $787-billion plan will increase employment in the short-term, but will run up deficit spending which will “crowd out” private investment in the economy in the long-term. The analysis concludes that the stimulus will put downward pressure on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and wages after 2014. (The Gross Domestic Product is the total value of all goods and services...

CBO: TARP Executive-Pay Limits Would Cost Treasury $10.9 Billion Over 10 Yrs WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Caps on compensation paid to executives at firms receiving taxpayer money under the financial rescue program added to the Senate economic stimulus bill would cost the Treasury around $10.9 billion over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday. One cap, introduced last week as an amendment to the stimulus bill by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., would cost the federal government nearly $14 billion in lost income-tax revenues by 2019, the nonpartisan CBO said. The cost to the taxpayer would be partially offset by...

Obama's stimulus will stimulate illegal immigration According to the CBO, the stimulus bill will actually hurt the economy in the long run. However, there is the possibility it will stimulate illegal immigration. In addition to providing up to 300 thousand construction jobs for illegal aliens, the bill will bail out irresponsible states like California. This will allow them to avoid dealing with one of the primary reasons they have a budget deficit. That reason is the extensive and expensive social net they have extended to illegal immigrants. When you couple this stimulus bill with the collapsing state of the Mexican...

The Congressional Budget Office predicted that the current economic recession will end in the second half of 2009 without the trillion dollar stimulus. From The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2009 to 2019 (pdf): CBO anticipates that the current recession, which started in December 2007, will last until the second half of 2009, making it the longest recession since World War II. (The longest such recessions otherwise, the 1973–1974 and 1981–1982 recessions, both lasted 16 months. If the current recession were to continue beyond midyear, it would last at least 19 months.) It could also be the deepest recession...

President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing. CBO estimates that by 2019 the Senate legislation would reduce GDP by 0.1 percent to...