The U.S. budget deficit is projected to be $1.3 trillion in the year ending Sept. 30, down from $1.4 trillion forecast in April, because of curbs on federal spending and increased income-tax collections, the Congressional Budget Office said. (more)
President Obama’s government takeover of health care is just as unpopular now as it was upon being signed into law. Not surprisingly, his administration is playing defense in anticipation of a very lonely and historically hollow one-year anniversary. Instead of reasonably reassessing the shortcomings of the legislation, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius placed an op-ed last Monday outlandishly titled “Everyone prospers under health law.” Doubtless other glowing and grossly disconnected defenses will follow. The simple fact is, no amount of spin can disguise the plain truth: Obama’s 2,000-page leviathan was the wrong answer at the wrong time, and has created more problems than solutions. (more)
The Democratic co-chair of President Obama’s fiscal commission said Wednesday that the president’s health care bill will do very little to bring down costs, contradicting claims from the White House that their sweeping legislation will dramatically impact runaway entitlement spending. (more)
Speaking in Dallas this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a stern warning about the fiscal direction of our government: “Unless we as a nation demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal responsibility, in the longer run we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth.” (more)
Fundamental changes to the federal budget will be needed to rein in unsustainable deficits, Congress’s budget watchdog said Thursday. (more)
Two weeks ago, Anthem Blue Cross raised its rates in California rather sharply. To my mind, the move gave a fresh boost to Democratic health care reform, certainly not a positive occurrence—even despite Anthem’s market-based, and quite logical, defense. Furthermore, the federal investigation into the rate hikes gave Obama a bit of a public relations boost, as his administration could now point to “evidence” that their reform was necessary. To paraphrase Nina Easton on Monday’s “Special Report,” Obama’s new health care proposal hopes that the American people dislike insurance companies more than they distrust government officials. (more)
President Barack Obama pledged in an address to a joint session of Congress in September 2009 that any health care bill he signed would cost no more than $900 billion over 10 years and would not worsen the federal budget deficit in the short or long term.[1] (more)
