Thursday, January 06, 2011

Paul Ryan: "I Will Eat My Tie" If Obamacare Reduces the Deficit

Funny, I don't recall Obama making it interesting like that back when he was running around promising Americans that his healthcare monstrosity was 'deficit-neutral'.

Obama could have said: "I'll eat my golf glove if this bill adds one dime to the deficit!"

But he didn't. Hmmm...

So here is Paul Ryan on tonight's Mark Levin radio show, explaining for the umpteenth time that the CBO's output is entirely dependent on the data that is spoon-fed to them and the set of assumptions they are instructed to make.

In other words, they are robot slaves with green eyeshades.
Whatever you put in CBO - in front of them - they have to score what you put in front of them. They put this health care, we put the health care bill in front of them; the health care bill is full of gimmicks and spending tricks. Ten years of tax increases to pay for six years of spending, for starters. They double-count revenue for Social Security. They double-count revenue for this new CLASS Act program. They double-count Medicare cuts. They ignore the 'doc fix'. They did not include the $115 billion in spending that would be required just to set the bureaucracy up to run this new program.

"If you take out all the double-counting - if you add the counting they didn't count - it adds a $701 billion deficit. So, what CBO cannot do is tell you "we're not going to count the budget gimmicks that are in this legislation." They just have to estimate the bill as it's written, with all the gimmicks included. So, people around here know how to write legislation to manipulate the kind of cost estimate you're gonna get from the Congressional Budget Office. I sent a letter to the CBO, I asked them "Well, now look at these budget gimmicks, ignore these budget gimmicks. What then?" And it's what I just told you, this thing is a huge budget-buster. So, what they have is a piece of paper that they've manipulated to say this thing reduces the deficit.

I will eat my tie if that is the outcome of this law. But, they're trying to say by voting to repeal health care, we're going to raise the deficit - and we're just not gonna buy that economics. We're not gonna accept all these budget gimmicks, and that's why we're going to move ahead and repeal this thing anyway."
Transcripted from the audio at The Right Scoop. Cross-posted.

Gateway Pundit links. Thanks!

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