Do you believe there is a solution to the United States' financial situation?

[Hauldren Collider]

That would increase the deficit

No, it wouldn't. And if you believe it would then you are a tool. There are dozens of reasons that the CBO score is bull****, but I'll name the three big ones:

-10 years of taxes for 6 years of spending. If you just set it to 11 years, obamacare has a serious deficit. This is pretty much fraud right here.
-THE DOC FIX.
-Increasing taxes to pay for increased spending does not mean something "pays for itself". If you can actually raise taxes that much, that means that you could raise taxes and then NOT increase spending and you would have done even more to improve the deficit. It's completely broken logic to say that the program "pays for itself" unless it actually earns money like a business or saves money in other places.
-Did I mention the doc fix?

These aren't the only reasons but they are way more than enough to throw Obamacare seriously into red ink. They are also absurdly obvious.

Also, 1,000,000 stupidity points for the first person to link to the Krugman article claiming that the doc fix has nothing to do with Obamacare. However smart he used to be, at this point he's a bawling idiot. Ignore him.

[giblets]

The CBO is nonpartisan and I think the people working there know what they are doing.

[DinoDoc]

That would increase the deficit

Give me $1 billion to cut the budget deficit
I have a plan to reduce the budget deficit. The essence of the plan is the federal government writing me a check for $1 billion. The plan will be financed by $3 billion of tax increases. According to my back-of-the envelope calculations, giving me that $1 billion will reduce the budget deficit by $2 billion.

Now, you may be tempted to say that giving me that $1 billion will not really reduce the budget deficit. Rather, you might say, it is the tax increases, which have nothing to do with my handout, that are reducing the budget deficit. But if you are tempted by that kind of sloppy thinking, you have not been following the debate over healthcare reform.

Healthcare reform, its advocates tell us, is fiscal reform. The healthcare reform bill passed last year increased government spending to cover the uninsured, but it also reduced the budget deficit by increasing various taxes as well. Because of this bill, the advocates say, the federal government is on a sounder fiscal footing. Repealing it, they say, would make the budget deficit worse.

So, by that logic, giving me $1 billion is fiscal reform as well. To be honest, I don't really need the money. But if I can help promote long-term fiscal sustainability, I am ready to do my part.

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2011/01/give-me-1-billion-to-reduce-budget.html

[Hauldren Collider]

The CBO is nonpartisan and I think the people working there know what they are doing.

The CBO is nonpartisan but it has to score the bill put in front of it. It's pretty easy to game CBO, and that is exactly what the democrats did. If you screw with the accounting, you can screw with the score. The healthcare bill's score is utterly meaningless.

[giblets]

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2011/01/give-me-1-billion-to-reduce-budget.html

So you're saying that repealing Obamacare would be a tax cut? We can't afford tax cuts when we have a trillion dollar deficit.

[MRT144]

Kill the old and scrap 75% of the military. Kill the youth just to be safe.

[DinoDoc]

The CBO is nonpartisan and I think the people working there know what they are doing.

The Congressional Budget Office does do honest work. True enough. But it can only use the numbers that Congress supplies – and Congress does dishonest work and games the numbers to its liking. It is not the CBO's job to judge.

[giblets]

The CBO is nonpartisan but it has to score the bill put in front of it. It's pretty easy to game CBO, and that is exactly what the democrats did. If you screw with the accounting, you can screw with the score. The healthcare bill's score is utterly meaningless.

I'm pretty sure the bill that was put in front of the CBO is the same bill congress passed. I don't see what the problem is.

[Hauldren Collider]

So you're saying that repealing Obamacare would be a tax cut? We can't afford tax cuts when we have a trillion dollar deficit.

Quit being obtuse. You keep getting backed into a corner by being a Robert Gibbs echo chamber and then try to wriggle yourself out with intentionally stupid snipes. You're certainly not winning anyone over to your side.

[Hauldren Collider]

FIVE EASY WAYS TO SCREW WITH THE CBO:

1. Put some of the spending (actually, about half of it) in a separate bill that CBO doesn't score. This is the doc fix method.
2. Tell CBO to only test over a period of time (for instance 10 years) and then make it so that the spending doesn't start right away. CBO scores the net over ten years, even though on a year-to-year basis you have a gaping deficit.
3. Include ridiculous assumptions like "SCIENCE WILL LOWER HEALTHCARE COSTS BY $X" and force CBO to accept this conclusion.
4. Include taxes and spending in the same bill.
5. Put significant amounts of spending in unfunded liabilities.

[giblets]

The Congressional Budget Office does do honest work. True enough. But it can only use the numbers that Congress supplies – and Congress does dishonest work and games the numbers to its liking. It is not the CBO's job to judge.

So your argument is that if the bill contained something that the bill doesn't contain, then it would be in the red, therefore the bill is in the red. That is some bulletproof logic.

[Hauldren Collider]

gribbler, just go back to r/politics. They probably miss you there.

[DinoDoc]

Can you explain the logic of excluding the cost of something Congress included in the bill to begin with and is going to do anyway from the cost of reform?

[DinoDoc]

So you're saying that repealing Obamacare would be a tax cut? We can't afford tax cuts when we have a trillion dollar deficit.

I'm saying that anyone that sees this as a great way to reduce the debt is a fool.

[Hauldren Collider]

If we can't afford the tax cuts, how come we can afford the entitlement that uses up all the revenue generated by the tax cut?