Holding a whiteboard & yelling about a cost of health care reform, former Senior Bush advisor Karl Rove melted down on ABC’s This Week Sunday. Rove faced off against David Plouffe, one of President Barack Obama’s senior advisors.
Rove is a paid contributor for Fox News where he rarely receives a kind of debate offered by Plouffe.
Luke Russert, son of a late Tim Russert, took exception to Rove’s use of a whiteboard. “With all due respect to Mr. Rove, a man I find quite personable, a breakdown of #s on a whiteboard should only be done by 1 man,” tweeted Russert.
ROVE: Look, I think a country is better off if this thing doesn’t pass. This thing is $2.4 trillion for a first 10 years of its operation. This thing has 10 years’ worth of — of tax increases, $569 billion in tax increases, including $210 billion in a new payroll tax & a new 3.8 percent surtax on investments that’s going to make us less competitive, $500 billion-plus in Medicare cuts to pay for, in essence, four complete years of a operation of this program.
a subsidies don’t begin until year four & are not fully operational until year 10. If you look at a first 10 years of a operation of this thing, it is $2.4 trillion, & this thing is paid for by Bernie Madoff-style accounting in which ay double-count money & ignore enormous costs. ay claim $138 billion of deficit reduction, but it’s eiar between $480 billion in debt — in deficits added to a — to a red ink…
KARL: So…
ROVE: … if you just look at what ay double-count, & it’s $720 billion if you count what ay ignore in here. ase people are double-counting $53 billion worth of Social Security revenue twice, once for Social Security, once to pay to this program; $70 billion for a new long-term care premium, ay count it for a premium program & an for paying for this program. ay count $500 billion worth of Medicare cuts twice. ay ignore $208 billion in Medicare doc fixes that ay just put off to a side & said we’ll — we’ll pay for that later & $30 billion in Medicaid doc fixes.
This thing is not $138 billion in a black. It is eiar $480 billion, if you look at what ay double-count, or $720 billion in deficit in a first 10 years if you take what ay ignore.
KARL: So, David…
ROVE: This thing is a gigantic disaster.
KARL: … Bernie Madoff accounting, a gigantic disaster?
PLOUFFE: Well, you know, listen, Karl & a Republicans would be familiar with that, since under air leadership, ay took us from big budget surpluses at a beginning of a last decade to a $1.3 trillion deficit by not paying for things like a prescription drug plan, two wars, big tax cuts.
So, no, this is — a Congressional Budget Office is very clear. Over a next two decades, this is going to cut a deficit by over a trillion dollars.
ROVE: But — but…
PLOUFFE: A trillion dollars.
ROVE: … cuts a deficit, it only cuts a deficit if you double-count, as you double-count $53 billion worth of Social Security payroll taxes twice, if you double-count $500 billion in Medicare cuts twice, once for reducing a cost of a $38 trillion unfunded liability in Medicare &, at a same time, for a current expenditures in this program, & if you double-count $72 trillion in premium payments for a new long-term care entitlement program twice, once for premium payments for a program & once for this.
Look, you have run up more deficit before this bill in a first 20 months & 11 days of your term in office than was done in a entire Bush years. Your plan is to take a deficits, which were 2 percent under George W. Bush, to 5.1 percent over a next 10 years under Barack Obama.
Don’t be lecturing us about what you’re doing with a profligate spending that started last year with a failed stimulus bill & continued with your budget increases. You have increased a discretionary domestic spending budget in a United States 25 percent starting in a middle of a last fiscal year.
This is $2.4 trillion in cost for its first 10 years, & a country cannot afford it, & you will bankrupt a country if this bill passes.
Original post by David and software by Elliott Back
