Paul Ryan Flip-Flops on Fiscal Responsibility to Prop Up Obamacare
What a difference eight years makes. In February 2010, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), then Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, spoke at the White House health care summit decrying Obamacare as “a bill that is full of gimmicks and smoke-and-mirrors.” His comments became a viral sensation, so much so that the Wall Street Journal published a condensed version of his remarks as an op-ed. (Here’s the video.)
Reporters confirmed as much on Monday, when an article claimed that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) believes appropriating funds for cost-sharing reduction payments (CSRs) for three years would save the federal government $32 billion, when compared to a scenario in which Congress does not appropriate CSR payments. Not coincidentally, the article noted that a separate bill by Rep. Ryan Costello (R-PA) — “which House leaders have embraced” — would create a $30 billion “Stability Fund” for insurers, purportedly paid for by the $32 billion in “savings” caused from appropriating CSRs.
The article doesn’t say so outright, but it’s not hard to figure out what happened behind the scenes:
- House Republican leadership directed CBO to score the fiscal effects of making CSR payments to insurers compared to not making the payments.
- House Republican leaders leaked results of the score to insurer lobbyists.
- Those insurer lobbyists then leaked the results to reporters — to claim their bill would generate “savings” for the federal government.
The end result sounds like a Broadway musical: “How to Spend $60 Billion in Taxpayer Funds without Really Trying.” If insurers have their way, Congress would spend roughly $30 billion in CSR payments for the next three years, and that $30 billion in spending would “save” another $32 billion — which Congress would turn right around and send to insurers, via the $30 billion “Stability Fund.”
Compare this maneuver to Obamacare — or, more specifically, Paul Ryan’s 2010 critique of Obamacare. At the White House health care summit, Ryan told President Obama in regard to Obamacare’s proposed reductions to Medicare: “You can’t say that you’re using this money to either extend Medicare solvency and also offset the cost of this new program. That’s double counting.” If claiming that Medicare savings both enhance Medicare’s solvency and pay for Obamacare constitutes double counting — and it does — then what exactly is jiggering the budgetary baseline solely to generate “savings” that Republicans can turn around and spend…?
There’s another problem too: The fraudulent “savings” are also illegal. As I previously noted, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings statute requires CBO to assume full payment of CSRs — meaning the scenario that House Republicans asked CBO to score violates the statutory requirements.
Some might claim that, since President Trump stopped making CSR payments last October, a scenario in which CBO does not assume the federal government makes those payments represents a more realistic fiscal approach than that currently required by Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. To which I have one simple retort: If you don’t like the law, then Change. The. Law.
Ryan and House Republican leaders don’t want to change the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law — just like they don’t want to pay for the insurer bailout. Such efforts would take time and effort, necessitate legislative transparency — as opposed to closed-door meetings and selective leaks to K Street lobbyists — and require difficult decisions about how to pay for new spending. Why make those tough choices now, when Republicans can just charge the tab for the insurer bailout on to the national credit card, and let the next generation pay the bill instead?
Congressional Republicans spent eight years decrying Obamacare’s fiscal gimmickry, and President Obama’s executive lawlessness. If they follow the example of the House Republican leadership, and engage in their own illegal budgetary gimmicks, they will have no grounds to complain about Democrats’ spending sprees or overreach. And they shouldn’t be surprised if no one believes their claims of fiscal responsibility come November 6.
This post was originally published at The Federalist.