CBO to Obama: That’s Not What the Numbers Say
This is Keith Hennessey, writing at his blog:
Never before have I seen a CBO Director so bluntly refute the policy claims of a President and his Budget Director.
Full slide presentation by CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf here.
Never before has an an administration made claims that are so obviously deserving of refutation.
I’m not sure what all this means, but it looks like that Obama Administration’s claims of bending the cost curve are all bunk.
See article beginning on the front page of the NYT this morning. All the claims about bending the cost curve wer based on the Dartmouth Atlas and now the authors of the Atlas are backing down on all those claims.
I really feel sorry for CBO director Elmendorf. He has spent his professional career crunching numbers. He has reached the pinnacle of his success — it’s his job to advice Congress on budget matters. Yet, when his calculations so blatantly show how financially disastrous the policies he’s analyzing really are, he discovers the numbers don’t really matter – only politics matter. Now he is expected to “tow the line” for political purposes.
You all are forgetting something. Nobody outside of Washington — not the public, not doctors , not insurance companies, not anybody — thinks Obama Care is goning to control haealth care costs.
Health care is just one part of the budget — there are whole departments that not only need to be constrained, but eliminated: The Department of Energy and the Department of Education immediately come to mind. Someone, please take the reins from Obama before he drives us over a cliff!