From TalkingPointsMemo:
On Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office released its updated long-term budget forecast, which looked surprisingly like the previous version of its long-term budget forecast.
It showed, as one might expect, that if the Bush tax-cuts remain in effect and Medicare and Medicaid spending isn’t constrained in some way, the country will topple into a genuine fiscal crisis — not the fake one the Congress is pretending the country’s in right now.
Republicans, of course, seized on that particular projection, and claimed (a bit ridiculously) that it proved the government must adopt their precise policy views: major spending cuts, particularly to entitlement programs.
While all this — from the findings to the politicization of them — is perfectly expected, the forecast also presents another opportunity to remind people that the medium-term budget outlook is perfectly fine if Congress adheres to the law as it’s currently written. That means no repealing the health care law, for one, but more significantly it means allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, and (unfathomably) allowing Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors to fall to the levels prescribed by the formula Congress wrote almost 15 years ago. In other words, no more “doc fixes.”
Helpfully, CBO juxtaposed these two alternative futures in a pair of graphs and, just as last time, it projects that deficits will disappear entirely by the end of President Obama’s second term (if he gets a second term) if Congress were to just sit on its hands and do nothing.
Since Obama has adamantly pledged that the Medicare provider cuts will remain, and that taxes for the wealthiest will go back up, it seems like we’re all set. What am I missing here?
Assuming that the rates for doctors won’t be adjusted is a little crazy. I know they’re not what they used to be but the left probably won’t (or can’t figure out how to), and the right has no interest in, demonizing doctors the way teachers have been, so their lobby will likely succeed for at least ten years in keeping rates higher.
You’re also assuming that we won’t start a bunch of expensive wars in the next ten years that drive up spending. The last thing is more of a question. Does the do nothing budget allow the tax cuts for the middle class (like the elimination of the marriage penalty) expire? If so, I have very little faith that any dem would let them expire and know for certain any republican won’t. If the middle class has to start paying their fair share of taxes (which I don’t think they do now) before we’re back to the 2007 job levels, which is easily 2014 or 2016 whoever is in power will lose the next election.
You’re right if we did nothing, things would be done, but I doubt we’ll do nothing.