Actual Cost of Democratic Plans: Over $1.8 Trillion

Both of them -- the Senate plan and the House plan.

For a a long time, they have been falsely reporting the "ten year costs" by comparing ten years of revenues -- also known as higher taxes and mandates -- with only seven years of outlays.

What happens when you compare a ten-year window in which there are both revenues and layouts going on for the whole ten years?

The costs skyrocket above their advertised costs -- they double.

Each bill is routinely “scored” for its 10-year costs from 2010-19. Yet this includes several years when the spending wouldn’t yet have kicked in. According to the Congressional Budget Office, fully 99.9 percent of the Pelosi bill’s costs would hit from 2013 onward. Similarly, 98.3 percent of Reid’s spending would come after 2014.

If you start the tally when the bills’ spending would actually start (in 2013 for the House bill and 2014 for the Senate bill), then the bills’ real 10-year costs become clear — and are remarkably similar.

The CBO reports that, in their true first 10 years, the House bill would cost $1.8 trillion, and the Senate bill would cost $1.7 trillion. Pelosi would raise Americans’ taxes by $1.1 trillion over that period, while Reid would hike them by $1 trillion.

And the House bill would siphon about $800 billion from Medicare to spend it elsewhere, while the Senate bill would suck out about $900 billion.

Seniors, take notice: The already-massive cost of this catastrophe is being reduced by $800-900 billion to give your care to someone else.

Someone younger, healthier, and, coincidentally I'm sure, more inclined to vote for Barack Obama.

This whole scam is a game of taking more than a trillion dollars in benefits from a constituency that doesn't support Barack Obama very strongly (seniors) to a constituency that does vote for him, very strongly indeed (the young, the poor, minorities).

It is a fair question to ask if we are too generous to the elderly at the expense of the young. There is not a self-evident answer. Perhaps Obama and Pelosi could make that case.

But they should make that case. Those who are to be negatively impacted like this -- seniors -- should know the facts of the matter, and not be lied to constantly by the Democrats, Obama, and the head-pat media. They should hear the facts, and they should get a fair hearing themselves.

posted by Ace at 02:58 PM

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