Facing The Reality of ObamaCare, Entitlements, and Budgets
Daniel Horowitz (Diary) |
It’s a done deal. Republicans in the House will overwhelmingly support a bill (HR 325) today which will suspend the debt limit law until May 19. The bill will also call on the Senate to pass a budget by April 15 – with the threat of cutting off pay for a dereliction of this duty, as prescribed by the 1974 Budget Act.
In return for voting for the bill, leadership has verbally promised conservative members that they will stand by the sequester cuts in March and craft a budget that balances in ten years.
Passage of this bill is a fait accompli, and Democrats have signaled that they will support it. So let’s operate under the assumption that this bill takes effect, and unite to force leadership to fulfill their promises during the debate over the CR, which is slated to expire on March 28.
There are many good conservatives who earnestly feel that we have no ability to force any reforms with control of only one house of Congress. I can respect that view, although they would be wise to study the evolution of welfare reform and balanced budgets in the ‘90s. However, those who think we can fight for reforms by using leverage points in the budget process, and plan to do so, need to think long and hard whether the current agreement will lock in that commitment from leadership.
If conservatives really desire to use this temporary debt increase to regroup and unite behind entitlement reform, they should fulfill their promise to block any CR that contains funding for Obamacare. Let’s confront a reality: entitlement reform is mostly about free market healthcare reforms, most notably, restructuring Medicare and Medicaid. Yet, we will never have the ability to change these 50-year-old programs until we disrupt the new behemoth from taking root. When fully enacted, Obamacare will take over 1/6 of our economy, create permanent dependency for tens of millions of Americans, induce unsustainable inflationary pressure on the cost of healthcare and health insurance, and saddle the next generation with crippling debt.
If we’ve learned anything from past experiences, it’s that no government entitlement program is ever repealed once the dependency takes root.
Hence, there is no entitlement reform without quashing Obamacare. There will be no balanced budget as long as Obamacare is still on the books. Obamacare will cost at least $2 trillion just in the first decade, and that is a modest projection. If you are one who feels that Obamacare is here to stay as a result of the elections, then stop talking about entitlement reform and balanced budgets.
Last year, 127 members of the House signed a letter pledging to oppose any appropriation bill that contains funding for Obamacare. 105 of those members are still in the House (download here). The full copy of the letter can be viewed here . On the very day this letter was finalized, conservatives agreed to suspend the policy and sign onto the FY 2013 CR, which funded Obamacare and is set to expire March 28. They felt that it was worth deferring the fight until 2013, when we were supposed to control all branches of government. Well, we lost the election. Now it’s time to fight Obamacare.
Obamacare might seem like old hat for people looking to chart new territory. But every new proposal will be moot as long as Obamacare is still funded.
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