Charging Obamacare to the Federal Credit Card

Kathryn Nix / January 28, 2010

Despite the recent focus of Congress and the White House on fiscal responsibility in federal spending, passing Democrat’s health care agenda will add significantly to, not reduce, the federal deficit. Pushing Obamacare through Congress would fly directly in the face of any rhetoric spoken in favor of reducing the deficit.

The necessity for Congress to raise the debt limit has spurred a nationwide conversation on the enormity of the federal debt and the recklessness of federal spending. Several proposals have been made within Congress to create commissions to suggest legislation to deal with the out-of-control budget. Even external organizations have begun to take on the task of solving America’s impending fiscal crisis. The latest development is the freeze on discretionary spending that President Obama proposed during his State of the Union Address.

And yet none of this means anything if spending, especially on entitlements, is not controlled. Unfortunately, adopting the Senate’s health care bill which would increase entitlement spending and add tremendously to the deficit. Though the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) initially reported the Senate health care bill would reduce the deficit, a more recent report from CBO confirms that, in actuality, the bill would increase the deficit by more than $200 billion. (more…)