Don't Be Fooled By The Bipartisan, 'Paid For' Infrastructure Bill. N-O-N-E of it is Paid For. It's Another Con from Con-Gress.
Posted by freedomforall 2 years, 8 months ago to Politics
Excerpt:
"Take the single biggest offset claimed — repurposing unused COVID relief funds, which the bill’s authors say would “raise” $210 billion (particularly considering that at least $160 billion have already been accounted for in the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline). Only in the minds of Washington legislators does this represent funds ready to be used when the national debt stands at over $28 trillion.
Imagine you take out a $20,000 loan to pay for your upcoming wedding. At the last moment, your spouse-to-be backs out. Do you then decide that you just got a free $20,000 to buy a new car with? Of course not, you still have to pay back that $20,000 loan. And did I mention that you’re already $28 trillion in debt?
Congress intends to use this trick a second time as well, this time with $53 billion from states that elected to end the federal unemployment insurance subsidy early. In total, $263 billion, or nearly half of the alleged “offsets,” come from pretending that unspent funds that weren’t paid for in the first place can be used to pay for something else.
Another major “pay-for” that is essentially budget voodoo is $51 billion from delaying the Medicare Part D rule. President Trump proposed a regulation intended to reform how insurers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) handle prescription drug rebates that budget experts said would result in about $177 billion in additional federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid premiums. President Biden has delayed implementation of the rule until 2023, and now lawmakers are proposing to “pay for” their infrastructure package by delaying the rule even longer. The rule has yet to even go into effect, but still Congress gets to count its delayed implementation as “savings.”
"Take the single biggest offset claimed — repurposing unused COVID relief funds, which the bill’s authors say would “raise” $210 billion (particularly considering that at least $160 billion have already been accounted for in the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline). Only in the minds of Washington legislators does this represent funds ready to be used when the national debt stands at over $28 trillion.
Imagine you take out a $20,000 loan to pay for your upcoming wedding. At the last moment, your spouse-to-be backs out. Do you then decide that you just got a free $20,000 to buy a new car with? Of course not, you still have to pay back that $20,000 loan. And did I mention that you’re already $28 trillion in debt?
Congress intends to use this trick a second time as well, this time with $53 billion from states that elected to end the federal unemployment insurance subsidy early. In total, $263 billion, or nearly half of the alleged “offsets,” come from pretending that unspent funds that weren’t paid for in the first place can be used to pay for something else.
Another major “pay-for” that is essentially budget voodoo is $51 billion from delaying the Medicare Part D rule. President Trump proposed a regulation intended to reform how insurers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) handle prescription drug rebates that budget experts said would result in about $177 billion in additional federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid premiums. President Biden has delayed implementation of the rule until 2023, and now lawmakers are proposing to “pay for” their infrastructure package by delaying the rule even longer. The rule has yet to even go into effect, but still Congress gets to count its delayed implementation as “savings.”
