Obama’s New Deficit Projections – Too Optimistic?
That’s the opinion of Former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, according to the Washington Times. Apparently the updated 10 year budget projections, while trending towards the CBO’s $9.1 Trillion deficit estimate, selectively include and exclude the impacts of proposed legislation:
Holtz-Eakin said that said the Obama administration wrongly assumes it will receive $640 billion in revenue from the creation of a cap-and-trade system for polluters, which would rely on the passage of an energy reform bill that many Democrats oppose, plus another $200 billion from a controversial proposal to tax international businesses. The Obama administration is also counting on the idea that health care reform will not increase the deficit, which some believe is impossible.
What’s more stunning about this? Counting in contributions from Cap and Trade, or trying to pass off projections that the proposed health care reform package will actually lower the budget deficit? A public option that extends benefits to uninsured Americans while creating a massive new bureaucracy is simply unaffordable. Targeted incentives to make health insurance more affordable combined with meaningful tort reform would be more practical and lead to more probable deficit reductions over the longer term.
* Update: Take it away, Greta:
(Youtube video h/t to Below the Beltway)
[...] to a questionnaire intended to screen audience members, Waxman apparently didn’t care to Obama’s New Deficit Projections – Too Optimistic? – solitaryconspiracy.com 08/25/2009 That’s the opinion of Former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin [...]