Obama’s ‘PayGo’ Sleight of Hand
In an attempt to defend the trillion-dollar health care overhaul bills currently being marked up in Congress and to shift attention from his own actions to those of his predecessor, President Barack Obama (D-IL) declared in his July 18 radio address that “the same folks who controlled the White House and Congress for the past eight years as we ran up record deficits will argue — believe it or not — that health reform will lead to record deficits. That’s simply not true.”
Leave aside for the moment the fact that any deficit-spending records set in “the past eight years” were wiped out by Obama himself within a single month of taking office. Also leave aside the fact that the president’s ire was misdirected (it was the director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, Doug Elmendorf, who made that indictment of the health care overhaul bills currently in Congress). The truth is, Obama’s claim to suddenly care about deficit spending at all is belied by his actions and his administration’s statements on a range of issues, from nationalized health care to the so-called “stimulus” package.
In that radio address, Obama urged legislators to “seize this opportunity — one we might not have again for generations — and finally pass health insurance reform this year.” He issued what was intended to sound like a warning along with that plea, saying, “I want to be very clear [that] I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade.”
While this statement was carefully worded to sound like an admonition to legislators against producing a health care overhaul bill that isn’t revenue-neutral, the phrase “deficits over the next decade” is a direct reference to the recommended “Pay-As-You-Go” (or “PayGo”) policy Obama asked Congress to pass in June.
At the time, Obama called on Congress to “to rein in deficits by addressing [current] challenges in a manner that is fiscally responsible.” This, Obama said, meant offsetting each new “expenditure” (including both spending and tax cuts) with a corresponding increase in revenue. The latter, of course, is poorly-disguised code for tax increases, generally targeted at the top 1% of wage earners who are already paying well over half of total taxes in America.
Though Republicans governed under pay-as-you-go guidelines from 1995 until 2001, Democrats added the policy to House budgeting rules shortly after taking control of the Congress in 2007. However, the policy has been waived or ignored several times since due to an unwillingness on the part of Democratic leaders to meet rising entitlement spending with corresponding budget cuts.
Obama’s stated hope is that the policy being enshrined into law will make it more difficult for Congress to waive or bypass it in the future when they want to fund pet projects without cutting spending in other areas. However, the proposed PayGo legislation he transmitted to Congress does allow for the rule to be bypassed in key areas important to Obama — like his trillion dollar health care overhaul.
Thank you for a thorough dissection of the “PayGo” rhetoric. But many of those who supported then-candidate Obama aren’t interested in the nuances of his rhetoric, or even the implications of his policies. And many of those supporting the President now are more than willing to mislead and bend the truth to sound convincing.
I think, therefore, the crucial points for any of us who want to stop this thing is here:
“Leave aside for the moment the fact that any deficit-spending records set in “the past eight years” were wiped out by Obama himself within a single month of taking office. Also leave aside the fact that the president’s ire was misdirected (it was the director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, Doug Elmendorf, who made that indictment of the health care overhaul bills currently in Congress).”
A few links to accompany this help – Instapundit has been pretty generous in continually displaying this chart from Heritage; the CBO debacle was nicely reported on by Mr. Moran, also in these pages.
Honestly, it’s up to the American people, as it has always been. I’ve been linking to the WSJ editorial page recently, too, and the thing I’ve realized is that the alarm has been sounded on these policies and the Democratic party forever. The information people need has always been there; it’s just amazing at how few people care (and, to take another knock at that silly op-ed re: tenure, how few people consider the mark of an educated person to actually be informed. Rather, even tenure is defended as an expression of right).
As a footnote to this absurd healthcare mess Mr. Obama has the distinction of becoming the first American president to “lame duck” himself within less than 6 months of taking office.
The message is out and in the hands of every member of the House, the Senate and elected governorship and legislative offices of all (57) states saying simply, “If you support Obama in any way, in any fashion, on any agenda or item, then you are dead meat – your career is over.”
Since I have no way to do it personally, I would like to thank Doug Elmendorf here and now. His willingness to speak up and the work of the CBO has been a wonderful contrast to the administrations “listen but don’t look” strategy. Hooray for Doug Elmendorf!
The red and purple state legislators of both parties will refuse to go along with Barack Obama’s goals. A large number of Americans are now truly frightened about their economic futures. These were the same people who until quite recently voted primarily on behalf of leftist cultural war issues. Obama can presently no longer count on their unhesitating support. As a practical manner, I suspect those who think like us represent a slight majority—which is growing everyday. The odds are that Obama has been effectively marginalized. He will never again be able to pass major legislation through Congress. Obama’s presidency is as dead as a doornail.
The Democrat Party is a criminal enterprise.
I still present my argument that the main goal of this administration is not the health choice bill.
There is little or no money to be made off health choice,
state governments and the fed will suffer because of the deficits.
It is only a popular program for us peons.
Tale-
Reminds me of growing up-
Our next door neighbors used to beat their kids before dinner, not because they hated them but so it would take their minds off how hungry and how bad the economy was.
Truth-
These people could care less if we starve.
The taxes and real money to be made is off
Crap and Trade. Trillions of dollars
Never let up off of these cabbage heads,
push them all into lame duck status.
Barack Obama’s own words,”That’s simply not true,” fit his own words. For instance,”I will not sign on to any health care plan that adds to our deficits over the next ten years” really should be,”I will not sign on to any health care plan that doesn’t add to our deficits and add to our deficits and add to our deficits. Deficits are part of my plan to break the economy.”
“We’re right,but we’re not able to prove it,” from Gaffy O’Biden is grade-school thinking–just above the pre-grade-school “I did it cause.” The answer is,”You’re wrong,and nothing can keep it from being proven by reality.”
So much about Obama’s health-care reform (or “insurance reform,” as he’s lately taken to calling it) disturbs.
Most upsetting to me is the WAY in which he’s trying to achieve expensive, questionable change: quickly, absent the time necessary for proper review.
He got away with it once, with his massive “stimulus” package. We shouldn’t let him get away with it again.
See: Hurry Up and Wait http://emmeffemm.com/id166.html
We live in a country where a large number of very secular voters have never, until very recently, suffered serious economic setbacks. They were born and raised in affluent households and attended the “best” universities. An economic crisis was defined as being compelled to drive a car costing only $25,000 instead of $50,000. The Republicans were deemed to be intolerant religious extremists and the Democrats promised to forevermore secure their legal right to abortion. These individuals rarely gave economic matters a high priority when entering the ballot box. No longer. These folks are now scared excrement-less. Can the Democrats retain their loyalty? I think not.
This post is dated. It isn’t a health care initiative; it’s an insurance reform initiative.
And worry not, it will be paid for by anyone earning more than $250k (per Obama). Oops that’s dated, too. I meant $200k (per Biden). No, wrong again. Make that a cool million (per Pelosi).
The one constant here is that a leftist administration founded on identity politics assumes that most Americans hate the rich and will gladly see them scapegoated to their own selfish advantage. The challenge is finding the magic dollar-number that will bring the voters on board for “insurance reform.”
The bottom line? This administration reeks of contempt for America and Americans.
4. David Thomson:
“A large number of Americans are now truly frightened about their economic futures. ”
They may be frightened, but are they educating themselves as how everything works and how much it costs? Or are they just listening to news bites?
We get what we deserve.
Mr. Obama’s rhetoric only serves to disguise his true agenda. His policies are part of a willful attempt to tank the economy. Then what? I can already hear the exegesis: “The nation stands on the cusp of an unprecedented economic CRISES. We have to move NOW to centralize the economy under government control.” The man is both deceitful and malicious.
Don’t you get it? Medicare and Social Security are on the path to bankruptcy. When national health care is enacted, benefits to seniors can be withheld and …. the budget problem with Medicare and Social Security goes away. Of course, those of us who worked all our lives and contributed to these government mandated programs will suffer…but we all have to sacrifice.
What’s with Hot Air and michellemalkin.com not connecting? I tried several times, and get nothing but blank pages.
Cyberg.,
Probabaly just server maintenance time at their ISP — or a commie/obammie plot.
President Obama’s Porkulus is following him like his shadow; the “stimulus” failure to stop unemployment from the private sector is holding Obama back. President Obama’s taking over of American car companies & banks have not helped him. Therefore, opposition to the One is growing every day. President Obama is revealed to be a Leftist ideologue who wants nothing more than to shred the Constitution to grow the Executive Branch & become the USA’s first American dictator. President Obama has no clothes, but he is oblivious to the facts given he is surrounded by sycophants. President Obama’s fall from grace is coming. And it’s only been 6 months. He’s a lame duck with no coattails. He’s poison.
of all the sh!tty things this administration is trying to force on it citizens the worse thing is the destruction of individual rights.
it is the individual rights that make the USA different from almost all other nations. and this is the thing the marxist hate the most.
all the other stuff is just fluff if you lose your individual rights, it is those rights that should protect you from the government forcing thes bailouts (with your money, dems don’t pay taxes) …it is your individual rights that are being lost when the government forces health care on you.
fight back. it’s your right. but with this crowd if you don’t exercise your right you will surely lose it.
(1) It looks as if the cultivated despiser element have been scared off, leaving the pajamatarians talkin’ exclusively to one another. I daresay that arrangement is more comfy for them as well as no great loss elsewhere.
(2) Neocomrade Rear-Colonel J. Emanuel seems a bit out of step with the rest of his litter. He writes “when Congress predictably decides not to offset the trillions in deficit spending Obama’s PayGo exception is allowing them to engage for the purpose of enacting health care “reform”? Or when the American health care system becomes the costly wreck that is Great Britain’s utterly failed National Health Service” — as if Obamacare was a sure as tomorrows’s sunrise.
The Big Management Party base ’n’ vile, on the other hand, seem to think that Kiddie Konservatism has already triumphed definitively,
“If you support Obama in any way, in any fashion, on any agenda or item, then you are dead meat – your career is over.”
From outside the monkey house, allow me to remark that the neocomrades are especially quaint and curious when they cannot even agree what colour their private-sectorian sky is.
Happy days.
Listening to yet another explanation/analysis of how Col. obama uses words to deceive just reminds me of the old adage, “You can’t negotiate with liars.”
It’s really not that complicated.
Unfortunately, the great deceiver will continue to find sizeable groups who are ready and willing to be deceived, either because they are also liars or just because they are stupid. The result will be the same in either case.
National strike is being planned for November 4.
It is truly sad that more focus was not made on his lack of experience, and his associations as well as his political philosophy (Marxist, or Communist) before the election. I think that with his constant media coverage that the new on him is wearing off quite quickly. I never would have believed that he could have been elected but was totally surprised when it did happen. It is also to me a mystery as to how his poll numbers could even be above 50%, but I attribute this to possibly bad poll questions and who they talk to (if they really do). It does seem though that more people do not look at him as a savior but a destroyer instead.
He who bows to foreign kings and then claims that it was only an act of respect for short people should have no problem with the duck and cover of PayGo.
“It is also to me a mystery as to how his poll numbers could even be above 50%”
No real mystery. White race guilt easily explains everything. My guess is that Barack Obama’s poll numbers usually reflect +5 points due to this sole factor. I am unaware of any other president in our nation’s history who accomplished so little before entering the White House. Many of those who voted for Obama may have had the best intentions—but their decision was unbelievably foolish.
“The obvious question of why the administration didn’t wait until they actually had reliable information on the economy before setting a new debt record in one fell swoop went predictably unaddressed.”
BO clearly and emphatically answered that when he stated over and over that when the car was headed towards a cliff, you had to change the direction you were going. He never said word one about stopping, and then consulting a map to see where they are, and where they should actually be traveling to.
18. JHM dba ”Neocomradologist”
With Relativism/Existentialism/Dadaism being the philosophical basis of your post (yes, using the word basis in that context is a contradiction), how do you know if you are on the inside or the outside the Monkey House?
You cannot negotiate with liars and you cannot argue with fools. That leaves the politicians with an open field to play in. We deserve what we elected, now get off your butts an un-elect them.
@24
Why feed the trolls?
Slight of hand doesn’t even describe what the administration is trying to do. The best analogy I can think of is, A person who is looking at bankruptcy, then goes out and tries to buy a new car.
I hope everyone who is against this so called “reform” is spreading the word and getting people in key states with key Democratic reps to call their reps and tell them to vote NO against it.
One good thing on the horizon is that Obama is even lower in polls at this point (six months) into the office than Jimmy Carter. To bad I can’t leave an audio link of a “horse laugh” but something like that would be appropriate here, I guess you will just have to use your imagination.
It appears the country is coming out of its slumber and realizing this guy is the last thing we need at this time in history. It is about time, now if the MSM would get it together also would truly be a blessing. Hope they do and hammer him daily.
NBC–which is basically an arm of the Obama Administration–has chosen to air Susan Boyle over Barack Obama! NBC forced Obama to air an hour later than expected. The One is losing his temper.
He just gave a speech about health care INSURANCE, but still it’s almost the same speech he gave on Porkulus. The Democrats are rebelling & Obama knows he’s lost. He’s desperate.
while hussein obama talks about health care california waxman house energy commerce committee chairman negotiates with other fellow jews in secret meeting on the health care issue! yes good old jew waxman from jungle ghetto state of california in secret meetings on health care! california boxer! waxman! pelosi! feinstein! waters! lofren! the people we all listen too? look at their state of illegal progress? plus california arnold running on being against communism during campaign pledge??? house energy salesman waxman cap and trade jewish bull for tax payers benefits? hillary in india on cap and trade sales bull pitch? been nice she brought some jobs back with her” like phone operators? solar panel jobs? ben bum beranke says economy is better? minus millions of americans security and prosperity jobs? debt is what americans prosperity future is this stimulus no transparency debt? beranke our jewish federal reserve chairman of no i will not open them madoff books? one would think he is married to miss madoff the bookkeeper? maybe they just think jew like? secret none of your tax paying business? yes the world of no transparency goverment? agenda health care big issue for millions of illegal foreign legion invaders health care? americans best welfare and security are not on this goverments best interest team page? we just get the tax tab bills for it? trade deficit nothing? job creation no? bigger goverment yes? special interest 270 acorn jewish run organizations? la raza the sotomayor pick? judicial judges them jewish members 235 in michigan? boy what kind of judgements can one get on them returns? TRUST a criminally run environment america? reality speaks loud and clear? illinois hussein obama the organized crime candidate of choice from chicago? just look at all the characters in honest illinois? like drinking contaminated water? yes health care the question is for WHO’S benefit? INDEPENDENT NATION ARMED FOR FUTURE! truth justice and the american way AMEN.
The leaders of Congress and the President are corrupt and incapable of leading this country. We are in an economic crisis with unemployment off the charts and they are trying to shove a Health Bill on top of Cap and Tax down our throats. One question- if this Health Plan is so good for American then why did the Democrats kill an admendment that would require Congress to have to sign themselves/families on to the plan also? Time to rise up and say NO, NO to the Royal ruling class.
I believe I read a moment ago the administration announced a 1.75 Billion defense dept appropriation cut which included F22 Raptors.
Well there you go right there . That oughta save 10 or 15 thousand jobs.
Heck yeah, that President thing is so easy any idiot should be able to handle it.
President Obama meets with the CBO via Hot Air:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/07/21/why-did-obama-meet-with-the-cbo/
He’s overstepping his bounds since the CBO lies with Congress–not the Executive Branch. The Communist is trying to bully the CBO into more flexible favorable numbers for his Socialist medicine. Desperation smells like poo & it’s all over Obama.
Paygo is another financial weapon of mass destruction (to borrow an expression from Warren Buffet) Ultimately, it can make government debt a “political derivative”. Instead of having to make a budget, the budget becomes hostage to political whim. Paygo is desirable for irresponsible and ineffective executives (Obama is such an executive), because the budget becomes a game of smoke and mirrors and no-one is accountable.
Obama’s reality is one where perpetual crises ensure that the public sector gets funded before the private sector. There is no confusion about the consequences of this. The public sector competes with the private sector for resources. Since the government wins, it devalues the entire public sector, and the citizens along with it. This was not the vision of our founders…
Mr. Jonas,
Get with the program; that $1.75 Billion for the F22 Raptors is not a priority, that money is
earmarked for Obama’s ACORN supporters and census takers. What is wrong with yuou?
Daer Mr. Shaw,
BHO doesn’t need to interfere with the CBO. I am sure that Witch Pelosi has already put a muzzle on them going forward. Anything that goes against the party line can simply not be tolerated.
“supposedly” in the medical/health plan they’re trying to pass… there is a stipulation concerning “affirmative action” for medical schools. They will get more funding and preference if they are admitting minorities over “whitey”..oh hello…(okay, it doesn’t say “whitey”, specifically)
What is happening to our country guys??? crap!!! these people have to be stopped and protected from themselves before they kill or bankrupt us all!! How about the ham and cheese buying spree???? OMG!!!! who voted for these people??? shame!!!!
Read “common sense” by Beck..then pass it on.
Every single one of us HAS to join the ABI groups sweeping the country. What is ABI? It means Anybody But an Incumbent! We have to clean house completely and then direct the NEW Senators and C-men to completely clean house of the entrenched b’crats in their DC offices and anyplace else they could subvert the new Congresscritters promises to the folks back home! Let them know when they get elected that they better perform as WE wish them to or their tenure will be real short!! Alexander Hamilton had it right when he said that a delegate to Congress should be for one term and then go home! He knew exactly what would happen if they kept on getting elected and he was so prescient.(sp)!
39…..ABI Groups. That sounds good.
I’ve been wondering how that might be presented and responded to, because I couldn’t care less if they are RINO, “moderate democrat” or whatever–none of them seem to be capable of thinking straight, talking straight or defending the Constitution of the United States.
Yes. Anybody But an Incumbent. I think there’s a T-shirt there.