Another $17 trillion surprise found in Obamacare
Senate Republican staffers continue to look though the 2010 health care reform law to see what’s in it, and their latest discovery is a massive $17 trillion funding gap.
“The more we learn about the bill, the more we learn it is even more unaffordable than was suspected,” said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Republicans’ budget chief in the Senate.
“The bill has to be removed from the books because we don’t have the money,” he said.
The hidden shortfall between new spending and new taxes was revealed just after Supreme Court justices grilled the law’s supporters about its compliance with the Constitution’s limits on government activity. If the court doesn’t strike down the law, it will force taxpayers to find another $17 trillion to pay for the increased spending.
The $17 trillion in extra promises was revealed by an analysis of the law’s long-term requirements. The additional obligations, when combined with existing Medicare and Medicaid funding shortfalls, leave taxpayers on the hook for an extra $82 trillion in health care obligations over the next 75 years.
The federal government has an additional $17 trillion unfunded gap in other obligations, including Social Security, bringing the total shortfall to $99 trillion.
That shortfall is different from existing debt. The federal government already owes $15 trillion in debt, including $5 trillion in funds borrowed during Obama’s term in office so far.
“The more we learn about the bill, the more we learn it is even more unaffordable than was suspected,” said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Republicans’ budget chief in the Senate.
“The bill has to be removed from the books because we don’t have the money,” he said.
The hidden shortfall between new spending and new taxes was revealed just after Supreme Court justices grilled the law’s supporters about its compliance with the Constitution’s limits on government activity. If the court doesn’t strike down the law, it will force taxpayers to find another $17 trillion to pay for the increased spending.
The $17 trillion in extra promises was revealed by an analysis of the law’s long-term requirements. The additional obligations, when combined with existing Medicare and Medicaid funding shortfalls, leave taxpayers on the hook for an extra $82 trillion in health care obligations over the next 75 years.
The federal government has an additional $17 trillion unfunded gap in other obligations, including Social Security, bringing the total shortfall to $99 trillion.
That shortfall is different from existing debt. The federal government already owes $15 trillion in debt, including $5 trillion in funds borrowed during Obama’s term in office so far.
Romney-tied PAC has taste for secrecy
Among all the super PACs that have deluged the presidential nomination race with big-money donations, only the one allied with Mitt Romney has established a pattern of accepting major contributions from corporate entities that obscure the actual source of the money or appear to have been created specifically as vehicles to mask the wealthy donors’ identities.
Twice, Restore Our Future has amended its reports to the Federal Election Commission after media reports indicated that contributions of $1 million and $250,000 were made through dummy limited liability companies (LLCs). In each case, individuals with past associations to Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Romney, or Bain and Co., the consulting firm Romney helped save, acknowledged they were the source.
But there are many additional instances of this practice. A Globe analysis identified nearly $4 million of the $43.2 million Restore Our Future had raised through the end of February that came from at least 16 spinoffs of better-known corporations or from LLCs, some of them dummies. There is no parallel pattern in any of the other Republican- or Democratic-leaning super PACs, which have proliferated to support individual presidential candidates or partisan causes.
Restore Our Future has decimated Romney’s chief opponents for the Republican presidential nomination with negative advertising...
Read this story at articles.boston.com ...
Twice, Restore Our Future has amended its reports to the Federal Election Commission after media reports indicated that contributions of $1 million and $250,000 were made through dummy limited liability companies (LLCs). In each case, individuals with past associations to Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Romney, or Bain and Co., the consulting firm Romney helped save, acknowledged they were the source.
But there are many additional instances of this practice. A Globe analysis identified nearly $4 million of the $43.2 million Restore Our Future had raised through the end of February that came from at least 16 spinoffs of better-known corporations or from LLCs, some of them dummies. There is no parallel pattern in any of the other Republican- or Democratic-leaning super PACs, which have proliferated to support individual presidential candidates or partisan causes.
Restore Our Future has decimated Romney’s chief opponents for the Republican presidential nomination with negative advertising...
Read this story at articles.boston.com ...
