"Health-care reform is entitlement reform" has become a mantra of the Obama administration. The idea is that Congress can add a massive health-care program this year -- covering the uninsured -- and use the same measures that pay for the health reform to fix the broader budget problems. If that sounds too good to be true, there's a reason.
On two separate issues -- health-care and the budget -- the president
has promised savings of $2 trillion. A total of $4 trillion dollars --
now that's real money. Unfortunately, the claims are completely
exaggerated.
This past February, four months after the beginning of the fiscal year, Congress passed the last bill needed to fund the government.
But what it finally passed was more than just late -- it was sloppy. Instead of offering separate appropriation bills that could be debated thoughtfully and with undivided attention, Congress lumped them into one, gigantic 225-page “omnibus” bill, and hurriedly passed it on the floor.
Now is clearly not the time to balance the budget--even the
most adamant deficit hawk knows that. But economic recovery will not be as
simple as merely running up the government's credit card and calling it a day.
Certainly, the U.S.
economy is in very bad shape--but so too is the fiscal health of the country.
