Deficits Of Imagination
by digby
I’m going to be very interested to see how the village media respond to this:
Moments ago, the Congressional Budget Office released its cost estimate for the GOP’s health care repeal bill — H.R. 2, the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act, introduced yesterday in the House by the new Republican majority:– Increases deficit by $230 billion over 10 years: “Consequently, over the 2012–2021 period, the effect of H.R. 2 on federal deficits as a result of changes in direct spending and revenues is likely to be an increase in the vicinity of $230 billion, plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes to CBO’s and JCT’s projections for that period.” (p. 5)– Huge deficit increases over next decade: “Correspondingly, CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 2 would increase federal deficits in the decade after 2019 by an amount that is in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP, plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes that CBO and JCT will include in the forthcoming estimate. For the decade beginning after 2021, the effect of H.R. 2 on federal deficits as a share of the economy would probably be somewhat larger.” (p. 7)
They’ve explicitly excluded it from “cut-go” and I imagine they are going to rationalize it by saying that it is a “job-killer.” But I don’t see how even the supine media can allow them to get away with calling themselves deficit hawks after this.
Yet somehow, I imagine they will. The Republicans have already convinced them that it makes sense to fix the deficit without even considering raising revenue. I see no reason why they shouldn’t maintain their reputation as strict guardians of the budget even though their first set of votes will be to raise the deficit by 230 billion dollars. Up is always down when Republicans are in charge and nobody seems to think a thing about it.
Update: Howard Kurtz just tweeted:
Boehner says Obamacare repeal won’t boost deficit and CBO is entitled to its “opinion.” Haven’t both parties respected CBO’s numbers?
That’s kind of adorable, don’t you think?
I have little doubt that the Village will absorb the fact that the CBO is now just another special interest group with an opinion very quickly. This kind of dissonance makes them very uncomfortable.
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