| George W. Bush's Social Security privatization guru Charles Blahous -- who now works for the Koch-funded Mercatus Center -- is out with a new report alleging that the Affordable Care Act adds $340 billion to the deficit. The new math relies on the old "double counting" meme -- an argument advanced by Republicans in Congress in the final days of the health care reform debate alleging that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) appropriated the same revenue for extending the solvency of the Medicare trust fund as it did for paying out benefits. What Blahous calls "double counting" is actually the "unified budget process," an accounting method that considers the spending and revenues of the entire federal budget over a 10 year period and the way Congress keeps track of its dollars. It's the same math that the CBO relied on to conclude in 2010 that the law lowers the net deficit... |
Read the rest of the story HERE:
At thinkprogress.org
At thinkprogress.org
