Perhaps this is why the president has no problem spending our country into massive debt? This is how he lived as a civilian.
The likely outcome of this year’s health care push is that we will get a medium-size bill that expands coverage to some groups but does relatively little to control costs. In normal conditions, that would be a legislative achievement.
But Obama needs those cuts for his whole strategy to work. Right now, his spending plans are concrete and certain. But his health care savings, which make those spending plans affordable, are distant, amorphous and uncertain. Without serious health cost cuts, this burst of activism will hasten fiscal suicide.
Read this article. Here’s a highlight:
The new Democratic administration has made it necessary for the federal government to borrow just under one half of every dollar it must spend this year to fund its existing obligations and all the new spending the new president and his allies in Congress approved during Obama’s first 100 days in office.
As the Associated Press explains, the FY2008 deficit will increase “by $89 billion to above $1.8 trillion—about four times the record set just last year.” Which Orszag and others want us to believe is somebody else’s fault.
