President Obama has called Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget “an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country,” but as this week’s chart illustrates, if something radical doesn’t happen, entitlement spending will nearly double by 2050. The amount of spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Obamacare subsidies will soar over the next 38 years, leaving future generations with an alarming debt burden. Congressional Budget Office predictions show that in 2010 entitlement spending attributes 10.3 percent of GDP, then jumps to 19 percent of GDP by 2050. David John, Heritage’s … More
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President Obama has touted reports from the Congressional Budget Office claiming his health care law would actually decrease the deficit. But due to a bundle of budget gimmicks and other legislation, calculations show that Obamacare actually adds $698 billion to the deficit. This week’s chart outlines each of those budget gimmicks. “This morning a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office concludes that the reform we seek would bring $1.3 trillion in deficit reduction over the next two decades. That makes this legislation the most significant effort to reduce deficits … More
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President Obama has reassured Americans that if they like their current health insurance, they can keep it. “If you’ve got health insurance through your employer, you can keep your health insurance, keep your choice of doctor, keep your plan,” Obama insisted on Oct. 15, 2008. But two years after signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, Obama gave many Americans a false sense of security that Obamacare won’t change the status quo. Four reputable research institutions have run the numbers and found that not only is Obama’s claim false, but … More
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Some apologists for Obamacare are trying to tout recent analyses from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as confirming once again that the health law will cut projected future budget deficits. But CBO’s recent analyses—including updated projections of the costs of the new entitlement spending in the so-called exchanges and some simulations on employer dumping scenarios—basically say nothing that wasn’t already said when the agency issued its original cost estimates for the law in March 2010. It is certainly true that CBO projected in 2010 and again this month that the … More
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Environmental activists and liberal politicians are fond of bemoaning the supposedly disproportionate tax benefits that go to the fossil fuel industry compared to its renewable energy competitors. The president specifically has made “ending tax breaks for oil companies” a pillar of his paltry efforts to reduce the federal deficit. But a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) handily debunks the myth that oil companies uniquely or excessively benefit from the tax code. One devastating chart sums up CBO’s key findings: As the chart shows, renewable energy is far … More
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According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), measurements of the budget impact of federal credit do not adequately address the risks involved, and may, in some cases, dramatically understate the costs of those programs. Under the current system, federal accounting practices do not “fully incorporate the cost of market risk,” (emphasis in the original) explained CBO in a new report. Market risk “arises from shifts in macroeconomic conditions, such as productivity and employment, and from changes in expectations about future macroeconomic conditions.” The expected costs of federal loan and … More
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Members of Congress will vote Wednesday to freeze their salaries through 2013 and impose the same pay limitation on non-military federal workers. The vote in the U.S. House comes just two days after the Congressional Budget Office confirmed that federal workers are paid 16 percent more in total compensation — a conclusion similar to research conducted by The Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute. “Study after study has shown that when compared to the private sector, the federal government on average pays more than required to recruit and retain a … More
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Medicare is in dire need of reform. This week’s chart illustrates why the entitlement program is the largest driver of long-term runaway deficits. With the country’s population aging and increasingly dependent on health care, Medicare’s cost to taxpayers is projected to rise from $522.8 billion in 2010 to $932 billion in 2020. The Heritage Foundation has long championed reforms for Medicare, most recently as part of Saving the American Dream. Heritage’s Bob Moffit recently outlined a two-stage approach to reform. The first step is saving the current program, then moving … More
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The accounting methodology used to measure the cost to taxpayers of federal loan guarantee programs such as the one that financed defunct solar company Solyndra may dramatically understate the programs’ financial risk to taxpayers. Simply put, the federal government ignores administrative costs and the risks of borrowers defaulting on their obligations. Under the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990, the cost of federal financing is measured according to a discounted rate based on the cost of lending Treasury securities. That includes the cost of average losses from loan defaults, but … More
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Following the failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) criticized liberals for insisting that any deal include a massive tax hike. In a speech at Heritage last week, he said tax revenue isn’t the problem facing the United States in the future; it’s the massive increase in federal spending. “It’s actually arithmetically impossible to solve this problem on the tax side alone,” said Toomey, who noted that Democrats on the Super Committee wanted to hike taxes by $1 trillion without making any fundamental reforms … More
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