Too much of President Obama’s speech last night reminded me of those campaign speeches for class president back in the day:
“…And if I’m elected president, we will have soda in the drinking fountains!”
He left out the soda part (I have a feeling the anti-obesity lobby would have been a little annoyed), but he seemed to promise everything else in the candy store. All for the low, low price of $900 billion.
This little fantasyland the president is living in did not go unnoticed. Tucker Carlson commented on all this free stuff everyone will be getting (but not paying for) in The Daily Beast:
“And that was pretty much it. Nobody else-not seniors, not the middle class or the poor or anyone else you have ever met personally-was going to have to pay anything for this wonderful new system. In Obama’s telling, there are only upsides. Free ice cream for everybody.”
The President really does seem to be living in LaLa Land (and I can say that, since I’m originally from Los Angeles), ignoring the reality of the numbers. As James Capretta wrote today on NRO’s The Corner:
“It’s as if the president and his team haven’t read anything that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has said about the health-care bills under consideration. The truth is that these bills would add an additional runaway health-care entitlement to the ones already on the federal books. CBO has said that the House bill would set in motion new spending that would grow at about 8 percent rate per year, while the revenue to pay for it would increase only about 5 percent per year. You don’t have to be a financial genius to see a problem here.
Today, the Lewin Group confirmed again how fiscally irresponsible the House bill is. According to Lewin’s estimates, the bill passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee would increase the federal budget deficit by $1 trillion between now and 2029, and permanently increase the nation’s total health-care bill. Moreover, they estimate that the uninsured would face an average of $1400 in increased costs from the House bill per year. Others with insurance would see a small decrease in costs, but that assumes no increase in taxes to pay for the government’s mounting bills.”
The President is being dishonest when he says his plan seeks out a middle ground between the far left and the far right. (I guess so, if that’s what you call a massive push for even more government regulation of the private market place and a government-run health care system.) But, Mr. President, whatever your plan, let’s at least be honest about what it’s going to cost.
