Senator Schumer and many of our Democratic colleagues have been conducting a sustained and direct attack on the millions of people who supported and identified with the Tea Party movement. Make no mistake about it they don’t respect the people in the Tea Party movement they demean them in every way and virtually every day in this body. And everybody that is part of that movement, because they believed in America, they thought this US congress has gone lunatic in spending their country into bankruptcy. And passing Obamacare over the overwhelming objection of the American people and they did it anyway without listening.
And they spontaneously rose up and it clobbered a bunch of democratic house members and senators - switched the majority in the House by a big number so they don’t like it. So everybody that opposes them that says you are not listening to us - they are now demeaning and attacking.
I think the American people and the people that identified with and supported the Tea Party either directly or indirectly need to know that. I respect , I know the people in the Tea Party, They care about America they love America they can understand what’s going on here and they think we’re moving us into bankruptcy and think we have forgotten the entire concept of constitutional limited government.
We’ve heard a lot talk about the challenges facing the government, during the funding lapse we are in. All of us want us to see the government return to normal operations and I do too,. but what we seem to be losing is sight of is the permanent consequences - the debt consequences - of the ACA and it needs to be a part of this discussion. And the democrats have refused to listen.
They have basically blocked any effort in the senate to reform in any significant way, the ACA and it has been going on ever since it passed. Their goal is to put up a wall around it. Anything that comes up they won’t listen to it they won’t consider, they won’t discuss It’s a fact, it’s a deal – you can’t even discuss it.
The House has a right to fund what they want to fund under the constitution and not fund what they choose not to [fund].
They are trying to initiate and force a discussion on one of the most important issues facing America and one of the things that is so dangerous about this bill has not been properly discussed.
"A lot of us are going to donate our pay during this furlough to charity and I will. But I wish our friends would begin to be more concerned for the private sector workers, millions of American workers who will be affected by the Affordable Care Act—hammered by it. Eventually full funding will resume to our government. We know that this furlough will end. But if Obamacare remains in full effect the consequences for American workers is going to be lasting, damaging. So will the consequences to the United States Treasury and our financial condition..."
In particular, as ranking member of the Budget Committee , I would like to focus on the huge and fundamental accounting manipulation that lies at the center of this Health Care Law.
The ACA was packaged and sold based on a promise that I am going to disprove. American people knew it wasn’t true anyway.
Before a joint session of congress, before a joint session of congress, the president said and promised this, “ I will not sign a health care plan that adds one dime to our deficit now or any time in the future.” Period. Closed quote.
That is a bold statement. As good as read my lips I would say.
As I addressed earlier this week, hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare savings to the hospital insurance HI trust fund were double counted under the legislation that was passed – at least 400 billion dollars. Over the 2010 – 2019 ten year period. 400 Billion!
So I asked for an analysis before the bill passed [ from [CBO] Dec 23, and we ended up voting on – Dec 24 Christmas Eve. They rammed it through before Scott Brown who would have denied them the 60th vote was elected in Mass. - liberal MA - on the commitment he would be the vote to kill Obamacare but they were still able to get it through before he took office.
So, the night before we voted, I asked CBO and insisted they give an answer and they did.
The key point is that savings to HI trust fund (Medicare) under PPACA (Obamacare) would be received by the government only once.
So they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and at the same time pay for current spending on the other parts of the legislation (Obamacare) or other programs.
CBO estimated that if Medicare savings were truly set aside, to pay future Medicare benefits the new Health Care Law would not decrease, but increase the deficit over the first 10 years and subsequent decades. They say it would increase the deficit.
There is a lesser known equally shocking account gimmick that I want to mention today, and that’s how it was done with Social Security.
They obtained another 100 billion dollars over the next 10 years by double counting social security money.
My time is up and I could explain it in more detail but we’ve got to understand this.
According to GAO and I asked them not too long ago, and they issued a report that over the long term implementation of Obamacare, it would add 6.3 Trillion dollars to the debt of the United States. That’s almost as much as the liabilities of that Social Security has.
In fully accounting for my budget staff tells me that the Obamacare legislation will be harder to fund and add more to the deficit than will Social Security under current …so
We need to stop digging the hole and fixing Medicare and Social Security not adding another program we can’t pay for.
