Ezra Klein: You can't cut the deficit without a bill that cuts the deficit:

Ezra Klein stating the obvious (but not so obvious to Republicans... why we need more moderate republicans!)

 David Broder has a column today expressing skepticism that health-care reform will really cut the deficit. But he doesn't provide much evidence for the charge.

The specific budget gimmick mentioned in the column is that Reid has delayed the subsidies "from mid-2013 to January 2014 -- long after taxes and fees levied by the bill would have begun." But not that long. The excise tax, for instance, begins in 2013. More to the point, it's not clear what Broder's complaint is. Reid delayed the implementation of the subsidies in order to ensure the bill's deficit neutrality in the first 10 years, which is what Broder wants. Why attack him for it? Then we get this:

There is plenty in the CBO report to suggest that the promised budget savings may not materialize. If you read deep enough, you will find that under the Senate bill, "federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-2019 period" -- not decline. The gross increase would be almost $1 trillion -- $848 billion, to be exact, mainly to subsidize the uninsured. The net increase would be $160 billion.

Huh? The net increase of $160 billion in the first 10 years is part of CBO's analysis, not a caveat to it. It doesn't mean the bill doesn't cut the deficit, it just means that overall spending is larger before you add revenues into the equation. Moreover, the CBO continues: "during the decade following the 10-year budget window, the increases and decreases in the federal budgetary commitment to health care stemming from this legislation would roughly balance out."

In other words, the revenue and the savings grow more quickly than the costs. Extend that line out further and, yes, federal spending on health care falls as a result of this bill. In other words, the bill satisfies Broder's conditions. But he doesn't come out and say that.

Instead, he pivots to the now-traditional argument that Congress won't be able to stick to the savings and revenue measures in this bill. That, however, is another way of saying that Congress can't cut health-care costs and the American government will go bankrupt. For one thing, that's not a very good reason not to at least try and avert that outcome. But if Broder's position is that we face certain fiscal collapse, then the only real question is whether we would prefer that 30 million Americans had insurance in the meantime, or went uninsured over that period.

More broadly, I'm confused by the budget hawks who that take the line: "This bill needs to cut the deficit, and I don't believe Democrats will cut the deficit, but since the actual provisions of the bill unambiguously cut the deficit, then I guess Congress won't stick to it."

People who want to cut the deficit should support this bill, and support its implementation. The alternative is no bill that cuts the deficit, and thus no hope of cutting the deficit.

Revenue and Health Care Costs... conservatives are roadblocks to fiscal sustainability...

Please tell me it was just a political statement...

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols