tax increases

PolitiFact: Obama Made False Claims About Health Care, Taxes, and Court Rulings

by Hans Bader on February 11, 2011 · 1 comment

in Economy, Employment, Healthcare, Legal, Regulation

PolitiFact, which earlier took Obama’s side about whether Obamacare is a government takeover of  health care, now is criticizing President Obama for making false claims about health care and taxes. In a pre–Super Bowl interview with Bill O’Reilly, Obama made the false claim that 12 judges have rejected “the notion that the health care law was unconstitutional.” As PolitiFact notes, only “four judges have ruled on the merits of various cases challenging the health care law. Two ruled in favor of the administration and two against.” (Earlier, we explained why the recent ruling by a Florida judge striking down Obamacare was not judicial activism.)

Obama’s problem with numbers isn’t new; during the 2008 campaign, he claimed that he had been to “57 states.” So he may not have been deliberately lying about this.

But as John Kartch noted earlier, Obama made a far more flagrantly false claim when he insisted to Bill O’Reilly that “I didn’t raise taxes once” while president. It’s hard to view that claim as anything other than a lie. Obama has signed into law a long list of tax increases on consumers and investors, which Kartch lists here. That includes “two dozen new or higher taxes” just in the health care law alone.

Some of the biggest of Obama’s tax increases haven’t gone into effect yet, and won’t go into effect until after the 2012 election, such as the new 3.8 percent tax it levies on many of America’s investors. As PolitiFact noted in debunking Obama’s claim that he hadn’t raised taxes, “starting in 2013,” “Individuals who make more than $200,000 and couples that make more than $250,000 will see additional Medicare taxes of 0.9 percent. They will also, for the first time, have to pay Medicare taxes on their investment income at a 3.8 percent rate.”

By contrast, an excise tax increase Obama signed in 2009 went into effect “soon after” he took “office,” and some of the tax increases in the health-care law that affect middle-class patients and medical-device manufacturers are already in effect.

For the moment, Americans’ taxes are not that high, because many of the tax increases already signed into law have yet to kick in. But appearances are deceiving, for as Kartch notes, “100% of the tax increases Obama signed into law are … permanent,” while “over 90% of the dollar value of the tax cuts Obama signed into law are only temporary.”

I earlier discussed why PolitiFact was wrong to accept the Obama administration’s claim that Obamacare was not a government takeover of the health care system.

While it dramatically increases regulation and red tape, Obamacare has done little to control costs; health insurance premiums have risen substantially in many states as a result of its passage, such as a 47 percent increase for some policyholders in Connecticut. Obamacare contains provisions that are harmful to the economy and medical innovation. Earlier, I discussed some of the bad effects of Obamacare on patients, employers, consumers, and the insurance market.

$7 Billion or More in New Taxes for Virginians Under EPA Mandate

by Hans Bader on December 1, 2010 · 1 comment

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Environment

The EPA told Virginia earlier that it would impose costly measures on Virginia Counties, measures so costly that they would result in record property tax increases in places like Fairfax County Virginia. The measures were designed to make the Chesapeake Bay cleaner. The EPA left open the door to less costly measures to achieve the same goal if Virginia could suggest any to the EPA’s liking.

Virginia has now attempted to do just that, submitting a $7 billion plan to make water going into the Chesapeake Bay purer. But The Washington Examiner reports that the EPA will likely reject it in favor of more costly measures.

So it looks like Virginia taxpayers will be paying at least $7 billion, probably a lot more, to comply with the EPA’s costly mandates. (Virginia, like most states — but unlike the federal government — has a constitutional requirement that it maintain a balanced budget, so it can’t just borrow and spend the $7 billion, it has to raise taxes to pay for it, or dump the cost on its municipal governments to raise themselves through higher property taxes.)

Virginia officials have been critical of the EPA’s proposed measures, calling them a “massive unfunded federal mandate.” 

In addition to higher property taxes, homeowners in liberal Washington suburbs face costly new “green building” regulations at the hands of local governments. For example, the Arlington County Board is also mulling new energy regulations that could increase the cost of home renovations by as much as 40 percent.

Taxpayers in Maryland counties like Montgomery may also end up paying increased taxes due to the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay regulations.

“Nearly Two-Thirds of Americans Say the Stimulus Isn’t Working”

by Hans Bader on April 29, 2010

in Economy, Employment, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony, Stimulus to Nowhere

“Nearly two-thirds of Americans do not believe the $787 billion stimulus package the president passed last year has helped create jobs, according to a new Pew Research Center poll.”

As the Washington Examiner notes, “a recent survey of business economists showed they didn’t think the stimulus was creating jobs, either.”  President Obama falsely claimed that virtually all economists supported his stimulus package, but this was patently untrue at the time he made this claim, when at least 200 economists publicly opposed it, and it  is even more untrue now.

Obama falsely claimed that the $787 billion stimulus package was needed to prevent “irreversible decline,” but the Congressional Budget Office admitted that it would actually shrink the economy “in the long run”.  The stimulus package has since destroyed thousands of jobs in America’s export sector, and subsidized countless examples of government waste and corruption.

Unemployment has skyrocketed past European levels, as big-spending countries have fared worse than thrifty ones.  As the Examiner notes, “If his stimulus program was approved, Obama promised, unemployment would not go above 8 percent . . . The reality is that it passed 10.3 percent.”

Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker says that Obama’s policies are delaying economic recovery.

“How is stimulus money allocated? Unemployment isn’t a factor, but politics is,” found George Mason University researcher Veronique de Rugy in a recent study.

Districts where people are struggling and unemployment is high are not receiving any more money than those in which unemployment is low, even though a stated purpose of the $800 billion stimulus package was to help the unemployed.  But politics mattered in doling out federal funds.  And “Democratic districts also received two-and-a-half times more stimulus dollars than Republican districts.”

There are three trillion dollars in tax increases in Obama’s proposed budget, yet it would still borrow 42 cents on the dollar, resulting in colossal deficits.

Obama’s policies would raise the national debt by $9.7 trillion, noted the Congressional Budget Office.

Earlier, one of Obama’s own advisers worried that the “barrage of tax increases” in his budgets could harm the economy and prevent a “sustained” economic recovery.

In 2008, Obama promised a “net spending cut,” but as soon as he was elected, he proposed massive spending increases.

ObamaCare Vastly Expands IRS Red Tape and Power, Raises Medical and Insurance Costs, Taxes, and Deficits, and Harms Very Sick People

by Hans Bader on April 27, 2010 · 1 comment

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Health and Illness, Healthcare, Insurance, Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

“Billions of more documents” will be have to be filled out by small businesses for the IRS so that a “spendthrift Congress can shake a few extra bucks out of” them to pay for ObamaCare. They will have to spend countless hours to “gather information,” such as about the person they buy a used car from, and the mom-and-pop landlords who lease space to them, even if the small business has to spend more money gathering the information than the IRS will collect in taxes as a result.  (The new health care law will raise far more revenue by taking away medical tax-deductions from “15 million very sick people” with “major medical expenses” starting in 2013.)

The health care bill vastly expands the power of the IRS.  The Washington Examiner says that “16,500 more IRS agents” will be “needed to enforce Obamacare.”  That’s “the biggest expansion of the IRS since World War II.”

ObamaCare is also costing major employers who provide health coverage for retirees billions of dollars.  “When companies started reporting the write-downs they’d take as a result of the passage of ObamaCare,” congressional Democrats “reacted with outrage at the announcements, and scheduled hearings to demand answers . . . from AT&T, Caterpillar, Deere, and Verizon.”  But now, the massive costs of ObamaCare are so obvious and undeniable that even congressional Democrats have “admitted that CEOs who reported billions in losses due to ObamaCare were required to state those losses after all,” and that their “companies acted properly and in accordance with” federal “accounting standards.”

“Economic experts from President Obama’s own Health and Human Services Department have released a devastating report noting that Obamacare ‘will increase national health care spending by $311 billion from 2010-2019,’ according to the Associated Press. Even worse, ‘Medicare cuts may be unrealistic and unsustainable, driving about 15 percent of hospitals into the red and ‘possibly jeopardizing access’ to care for seniors.’”  This contradicts Obama’s claims that the health care law would “bend the cost curve down” and cut the cost of health insurance.

This report existed before Congress voted on the health care bill, but Obama’s HHS Secretary concealed it until after the bill’s passage.

“The administration’s own actuary reported on Thursday that millions of people could lose their health insurance, that health-care costs will rise faster than they would have if the law hadn’t passed, and that the overhaul will mean that people will have a harder and harder time finding physicians to see them.”

To try to offset and hide the increased cost of health care resulting from their ill-conceived health care law, the Obama administration and congressional leaders are now proposing a new bill to “impose price controls on insurance,” even though similar legislation is already backfiring in Massachusetts, where health care costs spiraled upwards after the state government adopted a prototype of ObamaCare several years ago, resulting in “explosive costs.”

The health care legislation backed by Obama contains many penny-wise, pound-foolish provisions.  It spends money on frills like “cultural competency,” while cutting spending on crucial things like anesthesia.

Fourteen attorneys general are challenging provisions of the new health care law in court.  Their lawsuits argue that forcing people to buy health insurance is not a valid exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.

The new law imposes many middle-class tax increases, such as taxes on uninsured individuals, on cosmetic surgery, on medical devices, and on certain health care plans.  It also increases taxes on many investors and imposes marriage penalties.

The new health care law will reduce lifesaving medical innovation, raise taxes, drive up insurance premiums, break many campaign promises, and increase state budget deficits.  It  will jeopardize the quality of medical care, while imposing restrictions that failed when tried at the state level.  It ignores advice from doctors and federal experts, and lessons from countries with universal health care, about how to keep costs down.

While the CBO deceptively scored the health care bill as not increasing the federal deficit, thanks to the many tax increases in the bill, it did so only because it was required to accept many accounting gimmicks that even pro-administration journalists have admitted conceal the bill’s enormous cost and the fact that it will massively increase the deficit.  The New York Times‘ David Brooks, once a staunch supporter of President Obama, recently said that the bill’s drafters were “corrupted by power” and called arguments for the law “unbelievable” and “insane.”  The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle, who also voted for Obama, wrote that the law “is a fiscal disaster waiting to happen.”

Arlington County Board Raises Taxes 10 Percent To Go On A Spending Binge In The Middle Of A Recession

by Hans Bader on April 26, 2010 · 1 comment

in Odds & Ends

The Arlington County Board raised taxes nearly ten percent yesterday in order to increase County government spending even further.  Real estate taxes will go up from a rate of 87.5 cents to 95.8 cents per $100 of assessed value, costing the typical Arlington County homeowner at least $500.

Although inflation has plunged to almost zero in the recession, and private sector employees are tightening their belts and taking pay cuts, “County employees will receive merit-based raises” and other increases under the County’s annual budget.

County spending “has more than doubled” since the start of the housing bubble, and shows no sign of decreasing now that the bubble has ended.  Arlington County’s all-liberal board has barely disguised its contempt for fiscal watchdogs who have questioned wasteful County spending.

County employees are paid better on average than the residents who pay their salaries.  Even teachers, far from the best paid public employees, typically receive compensation of around $100,000 per year in Arlington, even assuming they don’t work in the summer.  (A couple years ago, when their compensation was slightly lower, Arlington teachers’ salaries averaged $71,148, and their pension and other benefits averaged about $27,636, for a total compensation of about $100,000.  The value of their benefits has since increased.)

SAT scores are lower in Arlington than in neighboring Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, even though Arlington spends twice as much per student as Loudoun County and much more than Fairfax County.  (Unlike Arlington’s one-party government, those Counties have competitive political systems where incumbents risk losing reelection if they raise taxes, which gives them an incentive to reduce wasteful spending.)

In nearby Montgomery County, where public employees have a similar death-grip on County government, the County Council last year allowed public employees to collect inflated pensions based on non-existent earnings.  This was too much even for the liberal Washington Post, which has not endorsed a Republican for president since 1952, and a Post editorial today suggests that the County may be watering down this concession to the public employee unions as the County’s tide of red ink grows.

As the Post notes, “Montgomery County politicians have spent the past decade outdoing each other in lavishing favors on public employee unions, whose memberships are presumed to constitute critical voting blocs,” showing a  “deeply ingrained reflex of coddling public employees’ unions.”

Tax rates should be much lower in Arlington County than in other Counties in the region, because its natural expenses are much, much lower (it has far fewer school-age children to educate than do Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties, as a fraction of its population) and because its tax base is much richer (due to lots of commercial property within its borders).  Yet its tax rates are not much lower than Fairfax’s, thanks to the enormous wasteful spending of the Arlington County Board.

New Taxes on Investors in Obamacare, and Massive Marriage Penalties, Too

by Hans Bader on March 19, 2010

in Health and Illness, Healthcare, Insurance, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony

The new tax on investors in the health care bill has been increased from 2.9 percent to 3.8 percent, but only a few media outlets like Bloomberg and Business Week are reporting it.

As the Washington Times earlier noted, Obamacare discriminates against married people, containing massive marriage penalties.  If you get married, your income will be hit by Obamacare’s increased tax rates a lot faster than if you just live together without getting married.  Under the bill, you will give up your right to federal health care subsidies at a lower income level if you are married than if you are an unmarried couple.  For many “low-income and middle-income couples, it could mean a hike of $2,000 or more in annual insurance premiums the moment they say ‘I do.’”  (While Obama won the 2008 election, he narrowly lost among married people.)  The new tax on investors is a classic example of the marriage penalty, since it kicks in at $200,000 if you are single — that is, $400,000 for an unmarried couple — but only $250,000 for a married couple.

Obamacare would also impose many middle-class tax increases, such as taxes on uninsured individuals, on cosmetic surgery, on medical devices, and on certain health-care plans.

Governors of both political parties assail the health care bill as a job-killer that will drive up state deficits, increase taxes, and harm the economy.  The governors of New York and California warned that “their states will be crushed by billions in new costs.”

Tax experts say it would dangerously expand the power and responsibilities of the IRS.

The Washington Post falsely claims that the CBO says the health care bill will save $1.2 trillion over its second decade, but the CBO says the figure is not from it (it’s from Congressional Democrats).  Amazingly, the CBO, under orders from Democratic leaders, has understated the bill’s cost for the first decade by including the present fiscal year — in which Obamacare is not yet law and thus has no costs — while excluding its last year from cost calculations.  The result was to reduce the projected price tag for the bill from $1.2 trillion to $940 billion.

While the CBO has scored the health care bill as not increasing the federal deficit, thanks to the many tax increases in the bill, it has done so only by accepting many accounting gimmicks that even pro-Obama journalists have admitted conceal the bill’s enormous cost and the fact that it will massively increase the deficit.  The New York Times‘ David Brooks, once a staunch Obama supporter, now says the bill’s drafters were “corrupted by power” and calls arguments for the bill “unbelievable” and “insane.”  The Atlantic‘s Megan McArdle, who also voted for Obama, says that the bill “is a fiscal disaster waiting to happen.”

The Congressional Budget Office, which would not question Obama’s gimmicks to lowball the cost of his health care plan, nevertheless admits that “President Obama’s policies would add more than $9.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.”

There are $3,000,000,000,000 in tax increases in Obama’s budget.  But he’s spending money at such a furious pace that the deficit will skyrocket anyway: “The president’s budget would borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010,” and “double the national debt over the next decade.”  Obama recently ran up the largest budget deficit in history, by a huge margin.

ObamcCare would reduce medical innovation, raise taxes, drive up insurance premiums, and break campaign promises.  It  would cut the quality of  care, while imposing restrictions that failed when tried at the state level.  It ignores advice from experts about how to cut costs.

A retired federal judge says that the tactic congressional leaders are using to rush Obamacare into law violates Supreme Court rulings and the Constitution.

Health Care Bill Would Vastly Expand IRS Power; CBO Ordered to Base Cost Estimate on False Assumptions

by Hans Bader on March 19, 2010

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Health and Illness, Healthcare, Insurance, Legal, Politics as Usual, Regulation, Sanctimony

“House health care bill dangerously expands IRS power,” say a tax law professor and GOP leaders.   The Washington Examiner says that “16,500 more IRS agents” will be “needed to enforce Obamacare.”  That’s “the biggest expansion of the IRS since World War II,” needed to “to collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses.”

Governors of both political parties assail the health care bill as a job-killer that will drive up state deficits, increase taxes, and harm the economy.  The governors of New York and California warned that “their states will be crushed by billions in new costs.”

The most recent version of the health care bill contains additional tax increases and Medicare cuts.  It dramatically increases taxes on investors by adding a new 3.8 percent tax on investment income (much higher than the 2.9 percent previously proposed by Obama), but few newspapers have reported that.

The Washington Post falsely claims that the CBO says the health care bill will save $1.2 trillion over its second decade, but the CBO says the figure is not from it (it’s from congressional Democrats).  Amazingly, the CBO, under orders from Democratic leaders, has understated the bill’s cost for the first decade by including the present fiscal year — in which ObamaCare is not yet law and thus has no costs — while excluding its last year from cost calculations.  The result was to reduce the projected price tag for the bill from $1.2 trillion to $940 billion.

While the CBO has scored the health care bill as not increasing the federal deficit, thanks to the many tax increases in the bill, it has done so only by accepting many accounting gimmicks that even pro-Obama journalists have admitted are deceptive and conceal the bill’s enormous cost and the fact that it will massively increase the deficit.  The New York Times‘ David Brooks, once a staunch Obama supporter, now says the bill’s drafters were “corrupted by power” and calls arguments for the bill “unbelievable” and “insane.”

Earlier, health care cost expert James C. Capretta explained how “Obamacare Is A Budgetary Disaster” that will cost at least $1.4 trillion more than promised.

The Congressional Budget Office, which refused to question Obama’s gimmicks to lowball the cost of his health care plan, nevertheless admits that “President Obama’s policies would add more than $9.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.”

There are $3,000,000,000,000 in tax increases in Obama’s budget.  But he’s spending money at such a furious pace that the deficit will skyrocket anyway: “The president’s budget would borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010,” and “double the national debt over the next decade.”  Obama recently ran up the largest budget deficit in history, by a huge margin.

The revised health-care bill would add a new 3.8 percent tax on investment income for individuals who make $200,000 or more, and households making $250,000 or more.  More importantly, it would also impose many middle-class tax increases, such as taxes on uninsured individuals, on cosmetic surgery, on medical devices, and on certain health care plans.

ObamaCare would reduce medical innovation, raise taxes, drive up insurance premiums, and break campaign promises.  It  would cut the quality of  care, while imposing restrictions that failed when tried at the state level.  It ignores advice from experts about how to cut costs.

A retired federal judge says that the tactic congressional leaders are using to rush Obamacare into law violates Supreme Court rulings and the Constitution.

Governors Criticize Health Care Bill for Increasing Unemployment and State Budget Deficits; Tax Increases and Medicare Cuts in Bill Rise

by Hans Bader on March 18, 2010

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Health and Illness, Healthcare, Insurance, Politics as Usual, Regulation, Sanctimony

Governors are now criticizing the health care bill backed by the Obama administration, saying it will cause health care costs and state deficits to skyrocket, while driving up unemployment.  Arizona Governor Janice Brewer said the bill would end up “exacerbating our state’s fiscal woes by billions of dollars.” Rhode Island’s Donald Carcieri said “this legislation is bad for Rhode Island, its taxpayers, seniors, and economy….This bill is not about health care. It’s about ideology and special interests.” Indiana’s Mitch Daniels said it would lead to insurance “premium increases ranging up to 78 percent,” “huge tax increases” for medical “device manufacturers” that employ many, and “job losses” and “a job killing tax of $2,000 per employee” that “will be levied on many companies.”

Earlier, Tennessee’s governor, Phil Bredesen (D), called the bill the “mother of all unfunded mandates,” saying it will force states to spend so much that they will have to either massively raise taxes, or run large budget deficits that violate state constitutions.

The health care bill has now been changed to add additional tax increases, such as increasing the tax on uninsured individuals by an extra $2 billion and on employers by $25 billion. Also added are new cuts to Medicare Advantage, increased by $13.7 billion (to $131.9 billion), and Medicare Advantage interactions, by $53 billion (to $70.4 billion).  This is according to the Congressional Budget Office.  But the CBO has cautioned that “the agency has not thoroughly examined the reconciliation proposal to verify its consistency with the previous draft,” so there may be additional major changes that remain undisclosed until the House votes on the bill.

While the CBO has scored the health care bill as not increasing the federal deficit, thanks to the many tax increases in the bill, it has done so only by accepting many accounting gimmicks that even pro-Obama journalists have admitted are deceptive and conceal the bill’s enormous cost and the fact that it will massively increase the deficit.

Earlier, health care cost expert James C. Capretta explained how “Obamacare Is A Budgetary Disaster” that will cost at least $1.4 trillion more than promised.

The Congressional Budget Office, which refused to question Obama’s gimmicks to lowball the cost of his health care plan, nevertheless admits that “President Obama’s policies would add more than $9.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.”

There are $3,000,000,000,000 in tax increases in Obama’s budget.  But he’s spending money at such a furious pace that the deficit will skyrocket anyway: “The president’s budget would borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010,” and “double the national debt over the next decade.”  Obama recently ran up the largest budget deficit in history, by a huge margin.

ObamaCare would reduce medical innovation, raise taxes, drive up insurance premiums, and break campaign promises.  It  would cut the quality of  care, while imposing restrictions that failed when tried at the state level.  It ignores advice from experts about how to cut costs.

Even Associated Press Says “Beware” of Obama’s Health Care Overhaul; Retired Judge Calls Health Care Tactic Unconstitutional

by Hans Bader on March 17, 2010

in Health and Illness, Healthcare, Insurance, Legal, Politics as Usual, Regulation, Sanctimony

Even the Associated Press admits that President Obama is not telling the truth about his health care plan and how it would affect health insurance premiums, in a news story entitled, “FACT CHECK:  Premiums Would Rise Under Obama Plan.”  (The Associated Press is so pro-Obama that it depicted criticism of Obama’s links to the unrepentant former terrorist Bill Ayers as somehow being “racist” even though Ayers is white, and so liberal that it claimed that the Democratic Party platform was “centrist”).   The AP writes, “Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.”  The AP notes that the Congressional Budget Office “concluded that premiums for people buying their own coverage would go up by an average of 10 percent to 13 percent, compared with the levels they’d reach without the legislation.”

Earlier, the AP admitted that Obama’s health care plan “would drive up the deficit by billions of dollars,” and that Obama was not telling the truth about the extent to which abortions are covered under his plan.

The procedural gimmick that congressional leaders plan to use to enact Obamacare is unconstitutional, writes law professor Michael McConnell, who recently retired as a judge on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals (clearing the way for Obama to appoint a replacement), in the Wall Street Journal.  The so-called “Slaughter solution” violates Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution, and the Supreme Court’s rulings in Clinton v. New York (1998) and INS v. Chadha (1983).

A CBS News commentary notes that ObamaCare would create perverse incentives for employers to create a divisive two-tier labor market, and for some employees to keep their income from rising lest they lose more in government health care subsidies than they would gain in take-home pay due to provisions in ObamaCare that condition health-care subsidies on not increasing your income beyond a specified level, and thus constitute a “massive penalty if their income rises.”

A pro-Obama New York Times columnist admits that ObamaCare’s enormous cost is hidden by dishonest gimmicks.  Earlier, health care cost expert James C. Capretta explained how “Obamacare Is A Budgetary Disaster” that will cost at least $1.4 trillion more than promised.

A governor explains how Obamacare would cause massive harm to his state, such as “job losses,” and says it would add “more than a trillion dollars to the national debt.”

There are $3,000,000,000,000 in tax increases in Obama’s budget.  But he’s spending money at such a furious pace that the deficit will skyrocket anyway: “The president’s budget would borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010,” and “double the national debt over the next decade.”

Obama’s health care plan will further increase deficits, as even Democrats have admitted.   Obamacare would reduce medical innovation, raise taxes, drive up insurance premiums, break campaign promises, and increase state deficits.  It  would cut the quality of  care, while imposing restrictions that failed when tried at the state level.  It ignores advice from experts about how to cut costs.

$3,000,000,000,000 in Tax Increases in President Obama’s Budget

by Hans Bader on March 13, 2010 · 1 comment

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Health and Illness, Healthcare, Insurance, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony, Stimulus to Nowhere, Trade, Zeitgeist

The president’s proposed budget raises taxes by three trillion dollars over the next ten years, notes Washington fiscal analyst Brian Riedl in the Wall Street Journal.  Yet, in spite of that, “The president’s budget would borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010,” and “double the national debt over the next decade.”

The Obama administration recently ran up the largest budget deficit in history — so big that the monthly deficit was much bigger than George Bush’s entire annual deficit in 2007.

The president wants a new $267 billion stimulus package, on top of the $800 billion one that passed earlier.  Obama claimed the stimulus package was needed to avert “irreversible decline.” But the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the stimulus package will actually cut the size of the economy in the long run.

Unemployment has skyrocketed past European levels, as big-spending countries have fared worse than thrifty ones.  As the Examiner notes, “If his stimulus program was approved, Obama promised, unemployment would not go above 8 percent this year. The reality is that it passed 10.3 percent.”

The stimulus package destroyed thousands of real world jobs in America’s export sector.  Meanwhile, the administration claimed credit for creating thousands of imaginary jobs in non-existent congressional districts.  The stimulus is full of wasteful spending.

“President Obama’s policies would add more than $9.7 trillion to the national debt,” the Congressional Budget Office said.   That’s roughly fifteen times the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars combined.

The president’s health care proposals will add still more to the national debt, through budget gimmicks.  Even Democrats have expressed alarm about their unaffordable cost.   Their true cost, experts say, is at least $2.3 trillion, dramatically increasing the budget deficit.   ObamaCare would reduce medical innovation, raise taxes, drive up insurance premiums, break campaign promises, and increase state deficits.  It  would cut the quality of  care, while imposing restrictions that failed when tried at the state level.  It ignores advice from experts about how to cut costs.

In the 2008 campaign, Obama promised a “net spending cut,” but as soon as he was elected, he proposed massive spending increases.

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