The Homa Files

Liberal pundits tout President Obama’s intellect and grasp of “the details”. 

May be true, but a couple of recent trillion dollar “gaps” gotta make objective observers scratch their heads.

Either he doesn’t know, he’s sloppy, or he’s fibbing.  Pick one.

* * * * *

First, the CBO says that the national debt will rise by at least $1.2 trillion more than Obama’s White House projects.  Oops.

Excerpted from 247WallSt.com: Mr. Obama’s Missing $1 Trillion,  March 8, 2010 at 5:22 am

The Congressional Budget Office said the national debt will be rise by $9.8 trillion by 2020. The figure is $1.2 trillion higher than White House estimates.

The CBO estimates are lower than the President’s on both the receipt and expense sides of the ledger.

The differences between the White House estimates and those of the CBO are profound when the ten years are added up.

US debt held by the public is 67% of GDP under the President’s forecast, but 90% when the CBO estimates are used as the basis of calculations.

The President’s projections are obviously optimistic. If he is wrong, the price will be high enough that America may not be able to meet its debt obligations with any ease by the end of the decade. That could mean default on US sovereign debt, or austerity  greater than the American public has seen in decades.

http://247wallst.com/2010/03/08/mr-obamas-missing-1-trillion/

* * * * *

Then yesterday, the President pitched his health care plan to nodding supporters as “reducing most people’s premiums and bringing down our deficit by up to $1 trillion dollars over the next decade”.  Oops, again.  Off by about $1 trillion … 

Excerpted from White House Blog: Obama Overstates Health Care Savings by $868 Billion, March 8, 2010

In what the White House calls the final push for health care reform, President Obama said: “Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill, which reduces most people’s premiums and brings down our deficit by up to $1 trillion dollars over the next decade because we’re spending our health care dollars more wisely,”

The President was so proud of these cost-saving numbers in the latest version of health care reform, he delved into a bit of Washington-speak to back them up.

“Those aren’t my numbers,” President Obama said to the rising applause of the estimated 1,300 in attendance. “They are the savings determined by the Congressional Budget Office, which is the nonpartisan, independent referee of Congress for what things cost.”

That part is true. The budget office does keep score of what things cost. More precisely, the budget office projects what things cost or save over a given period of time.

But the budget office did not say the Senate health care bill would save $1 trillion over the next decade. Not even close.

It estimated the bill’s tax hikes and MediCare cuts would exceed new spending by $132 billion from 2010 to 2019, leaving President Obama’s “next decade” estimate $868 billion short. [Or, more than $1 trillion if you add back the so-called MediCare “doctor’s fix”.]

That’s some rounding error.

When contacted, a White House official said the President  meant to say the Senate bill would save $1 trillion in its second decade.

But, the CBO has said “Projections for years beyond 2019…would not be meaningful because the uncertainties involved are simply too great.”

http://whitehouse.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/08/obama-overstates-health-care-savings-by-868-billion/

This entry was posted on March 9, 2010 at 7:59 am and is filed under Health Care / Medical Insurance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.