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Economical Health?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says healthcare reform would actually reduce the US budget deficit over 20 years.
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“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said healthcare legislation being considered by her chamber would reduce the US budget deficit over the next 20 years, meeting one of President Barack Obama’s main demands for the overhaul. Pelosi cited preliminary estimates by the Congressional Budget Office that various plans being debated by House Democrats for the biggest health-care expansion in four decades would cut the deficit over both the short and long term. ‘Whatever choice we make will reduce the deficit,’ the California Democrat told Bloomberg yesterday in Washington, ‘not only under 10 years but over 20 years.’”

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President Obama apparently thinks the safer way to justify higher taxes on the super rich is to pitch the proposal based on its deficit-reduction potential. But if he wants to get the ball rolling for meaningful tax reform, Obama will summon his rhetorical powers to explain how the Buffett Rule could help reduce the nation’s massive and destructive wealth inequality.
Depending on which economist has the stage, America’s economy is either experiencing slow growth, remains dismally flat, or stands ready to fall off a cliff. Nearly everyone agrees that the economy needs help. The nation’s debt and budget deficits are reaching, or have already reached, fiscal crisis levels. Historians will analyze someday how close the United States came during this period to reaching the economic breaking point as a nation. Truth be told, some fear that the breaking point may still occur.

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