cross-posted at dKos
______________________
The most buzzworthy story on the right side of the blogosphere this weekend concerned young Graeme Frost… propped up by Democrats desperate to avert the president’s veto of S-CHIP legislation, which would have massively expanded the government health care entitlement.
It appears that Ms. Malkin is concerned about massively expanding the government’s health care entitlement. So I’m pretty sure that Ms. Malkin simply wants to make sure that our taxes dollars are not diverted to something so mundane and middle class as health care. I’m pretty sure she just wants to protect the worthy entitlement programs described below the fold…
Pharmaceutical companies have been systematically overcharging federal health care programs, costing taxpayers billions of dollars, according to federal officials, members of Congress and an advocacy group, the Newhouse News/Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.
… Sun Microsystems had overbilled the government millions of dollars by failing to offer the same discounts it provided to commercial customers. GSA officials disagreed, and moved to renew the contract.
In 2001, auditors found that GSA contracting officials failed in 10 of 11 price negotiations to secure the best deals for photocopiers largely because they “too readily accepted vendors’ unsubstantiated or inaccurate information.” Auditors put the cost to taxpayers at $195 million.
The Social Security and Medicare Trustees, a majority of whom are members of the President’s cabinet, project that the Social Security shortfall will amount to 0.65 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (the basic measure of the size of the U.S. economy) over the next 75 years.
In dollar terms, the Trustees project the shortfall over the 75 year period at $3.7 trillion.[1] The Trustees also project the cost of the Medicare drug benefit at 1.4 percent of GDP, or $8.1 trillion, over the same period. This is at least double the size of the Social Security shortfall.
Furthermore, the cost of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, if made permanent, is 1.95 percent of GDP, or $11.1 trillion, over the same period, or triple the size of the Social Security shortfall. (This projection of 1.95 percent of GDP is based on cost estimates by the Congressional Budget Office and the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. It is similar to, but slightly smaller than, the projections of the long-term cost of the tax cuts made by economists Alan Auerbach, William Gale, and Peter Orszag.[2])
Because with Iraq at 1/2 a trillion and counting,
I just wanted to make sure I got it straight.
Ms. Malkin’s priorities, that is.
________________________________________
23 comments
Skip to comment form
Author
for our money…
Yesterday – grumpy. Today – …
After being wakened last night around midnight, decided to check out more on this story.
Big mistake.
Here’s the Baltimore Sun story on the Frosts.
This morning, I find myself as discouraged as I’ve been in years. Our political opponents – well I find it difficult to explain how overwhelmed I feel over the task at hand when I read how far away they have strayed from what I would consider common decency.
And there are so many of them.
I’m so fucking over it. All of it.
Interesting tidbit floating around in the blogosphere this morning thanks to Ezra Klein:
of the Republican debate the other night and one of them (can’t recall who) was talking about needing to control spending. He said people are always coming up to me and asking for bridges and hospitals, but I say we need to shut more of those down, like they do with military bases.
And off went the TV.
Are you allowed to not pay your taxes because it’s being stolen by idiots?
From mishima’s “Saturday Morining News For Oct. 13 (4th story):
My reply (I stole your title :)):
Thanks for the great posting.