Say you're David Broder, and you want to sit down and make the entirely reasonable and factual observation that the Democrats' health care bills will are "budget-busters."
"Will future Congresses actually impose the assumed $420 billion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health programs? They never have."
For pointing out the obvious, Broder was derided by Harry Reid as "a man who has been retired for many years and writes a column once in a while." Broder is actually a full-time Washington Post columnist who publishes twice a week. So, I have to ask, which was the greater indignity suffered by Broder over the weekend? Being ridiculed on the Senate floor by the Democratic Majority Leader or on the Washington Post's website in a snarky blog post by Ezra Klein? Klein writes in an oh-so-cleverly titled post "You can't cut the deficit without a bill that cuts the deficit":
[Broder] pivots to the now-traditional argument that Congress won't be able to stick to the savings and revenue measures in this bill. That, however, is another way of saying that Congress can't cut health-care costs and the American government will go bankrupt. For one thing, that's not a very good reason not to at least try and avert that outcome. But if Broder's position is that we face certain fiscal collapse, then the only real question is whether we would prefer that 30 million Americans had insurance in the meantime, or went uninsured over that period. More broadly, I'm confused by the budget hawks who that take the line: "This bill needs to cut the deficit, and I don't believe Democrats will cut the deficit, but since the actual provisions of the bill unambiguously cut the deficit, then I guess Congress won't stick to it." People who want to cut the deficit should support this bill, and support its implementation. The alternative is no bill that cuts the deficit, and thus no hope of cutting the deficit.
Where to begin? The bill does not "unambiguously cut the deficit." It assumes a Well, no, that doesn't quite explain the two alternatives right now. If no bill is passed, Medicare will continue to grow apace trillions of dollars.