Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Rick Ungar — GOP Senator Knowingly Distorts GAO Report He Commissioned To Launch Most Dishonest Attack On Obamacare To Date

Last week, the right-wing blogosphere gleefully erupted in response to Senator Jeff Sessions’ (R-Ala.) disclosure of a newGovernment Accounting Office report that, according to the Senator, reveals that the Affordable Care Act will increase our national debt by a stunning $6.2 trillion.
Speaking at a Budget Committee meeting, Sessions announced—
“According to GAO, under a realistic set of assumptions, the health care law will increase the deficit by…roughly $6.2 trillion over the next 75 years.”

Take note of the Senator’s statement that the finding is based on ‘a realistic set of assumptions’ as this is, as you will see, at the very heart of Senator Sessions’ extraordinary deception—one designed to purposefully and cynically mislead the American public....
Forbes
GOP Senator Knowingly Distorts GAO Report He Commissioned To Launch Most Dishonest Attack On Obamacare To Date
Rick Ungar

It's called making shit up. This isn't even spin, putting a good face on bad news. It's sophistry that amounts to carefully planned and orchestrated deception aimed at influencing public opinion through political propaganda.
Individuals such as Jeff Sessions have no place in public office because they have no legitimate interest in solving problems—they only seek to create them.
 Amen.

11 comments:

Greg said...

First off 6 trillion over 75 years is peanuts. Hard to see why anyone would find that number alarming.

Matt Franko said...

Greg right and how can they predict the "deficit" which is an ex post result?

These morons must have a crystal ball now in addition to a "time machine" to travel ahead to "borrow from their grandchildren".... what a bunch of morons...

It's like they are literally living in a fairy tale land with crystal balls and time machines... they are manifestly out of their minds insane... sad to watch fellow human beings so disgraced...

rsp,

David said...

Tom, I know you follow RWER these days. Have you seen this by Merijn Knibbe?:

Fighting FIRE with fire? According to Richard Wood we indeed do need more ‘debt free’ money.

http://rwer.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/fighting-fire-with-fire-according-to-richard-wood-we-indeed-do-need-more-debt-free-money/

Some interesting links; MMT and the Swiss "WIR" get a mention.

Tom Hickey said...

Thanks for calling my attention to that, David. I've been busy and hadn't gotten to it.

Tom Hickey said...

Interesting post by Knibbe. But it's a Rube Goldberg solution that would undermine what the euro is supposed to accomplish. They have to fix the euro by changing the structure or can it and go back to national currencies. National governments issuing parallel currencies is too weird. Just points out that the euro is failed currency.

David said...

But it's a Rube Goldberg solution that would undermine what the euro is supposed to accomplish.

Yes, and the platinum coin was a Rube Goldberg solution to the failed US political system. At least some people are beginning to explore options as Roger always talks about.

Tom Hickey said...

the platinum coin was a Rube Goldberg solution to the failed US political system

Exactly.

The fact is that the system itself is not going to end run the system. These proposals are useful if showing people how ridiculous it is to create a system that can't handle the weight it supposed to carry, but end runs around it can. This is a strong argument to just fix the system or jettison it for something what will carry the weight.

Matt Franko said...

David,

I would point out that "Rube Goldberg" machines were supposed to depict something "over complicated"... (perhaps that was the point you were making...)

While the platinum coin concept was pretty simple.... ie "strike a coin out of platinum with a number and an image of human on it" and deposit it/sell it to the Fed... pretty simple...

I agree that "debt free money" would be "simpler" too...

rsp,

Tom Hickey said...

I agree that "debt free money" would be "simpler" too...

I do too, but there are also reasons for not going there that need to be considered.

As far as I am know, there is no comprehensive analysis of this issue, just various proposals and then reactions to them. This needs to be put together so that the issues are clearly articulated in an objective way and various solutions examined in terms of the trade offs involved, assuming there is no perfect solution, which I very much doubt there is when all factors are considered, social, political and economic.

Presently, it seems that too much money creation power has been delegated to the private sector and not enough retained by government to provide the necessary policy space. This has a number of consequences that the world is presently dealing with rather unsuccessfully.

Moreover, we have to look at both the ideal as a benchmark and what can actually be accomplished politically in view of the power structure that exists.

Matt Franko said...

We would probably have to transition over a long time.... If we wanted to go this way... We have been trained (not the least myself) to save and put the savings in bonds to fund retirements IMO...

It would be destabilizing to just Go off this 'cold turkey' without many other policy adjustments agree...

Rsp

Tom Hickey said...

I think that an MMT-based solution could provide a transition space to something that is both more stable wrt financial stability and more flexible in terms of policy space.