Entertaining and enraging razzias, but at what cost?
Republicans Have a Solution for Their Deficit Problem: Flagrant Lies
Rejecting reality, they substitute their own.

If there is one thing that threatens the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, it’s the fact that it blows up the budget deficit. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), it will increase borrowing by a total of $2.4 trillion by 2034, because the $1.3 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs do not come close to canceling out $3.7 trillion in tax cuts for the rich. Just the tax cuts going to the richest 5 percent outstrip the cuts to Medicaid and food stamps by $300 billion. And if you add in interest costs, the total debt the bill rings up is more like $3 trillion.

A loud faction of Republican “deficit hawks” are reportedly unhappy with this, not so much because of the tax cuts, but because the welfare and food aid cuts are not savage enough. But a smaller faction of Senate Republicans—perhaps scenting danger if they vote to throw millions of their own constituents off their health insurance—are wavering on the existing Medicaid cuts.

What to do? The Trump administration has come up with a solution: outrageous, bald-faced lying, with talking points delivered through Fox News. Just claim that the bill will decrease the deficit with a blizzard of preposterous nonsense, and hope that will give congressional Republicans enough of an excuse to vote it through.

One argument here is a straightforward falsehood. Republicans claim that the “mandatory savings” in the bill will cut $1.7 trillion, but as noted above, the Congressional Budget Office found only $1.3 trillion. (What’s a cheeky $400 billion between friends?)

Another argument is tendentious metaphysics. Top White House aid Stephen Miller argued on Fox Business that “Extending and making permanent the 2017 tax cuts does not and cannot add to the deficit.” Hey presto, that $3.7 trillion in new borrowing disappears!

By this logic, anything can be made to not increase the deficit. Just pass it for one year, then claim that making it permanent will have no effect. We can, of course, draw up budget estimates where every current policy is assumed to be permanent, but that’s not how either the CBO estimate or budgetary processes work. The CBO is saying, correctly, that passing this bill will cut tax collection by $3.7 trillion relative to current law.

Amusingly, BBB relies on precisely the opposite trick, gaming the CBO budget window with various tax cuts that are set to expire. For example, “no tax on tips” sunsets after four years, as does the elimination of taxes on overtime pay and a tax benefit for seniors. If those are assumed to be permanent, as Miller advocates—and that is highly likely if Republicans are in charge when they expire—then the true deficit increase will be more like $5 trillion. (...)

ChatGPT analyzes the big bill, supposedly 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Qult_...

 Red_Dragon wrote:
Seems to be another attempt to dismantle ACA, which was already gutted by eliminating the individual mandate.

Medicaid provides healthcare for those who can't â€“ low income healthcare/disabilities/lt care for elderly - coverage grew from about 23m people in 1990 to 74m in 2024), 1 in 5 people…particular growth after ACA. 

Cost grew to $870B in 2024. Jointly funded by Fed and States. Fed pays close to 70%.

Trump/GOP looking to cut about $800B over 10 years, lets say roughly 10% of annual cost. 

ACA – 2010 – states can expand Medicaid to those making up to 138% of fed poverty line…40 states and DC expanded Medicaid in response, mostly funded by the Fed. GOP wants to cut this matching funds.

Where? Waste & Fraud, reducing Fed matching $ and work requirements.

Fraud? CMS said about 5% of payments were problematic. Of that 5%, 79% was due to state admin/documentation errors and not necessarily fraud.

Work requirements – have job or be a student. Arkansas had work requirements in 2018, which resulted in less coverage. But the courts shut this down.

Most recipients are already working or have disabilities/care taking responsibility.

If you cut fed funding, states will need to either cut coverage, benefits or provider reimbursement.

Bottom line, call a duck a duck...this is an attempt to reduce public funding of healthcare...dismantle publicly funded healthcare.

But the vast majority of healthcare is not an option...you get either get the care or you suffer morbidity, which leads to higher costs. Or you die. 
The costs dont disappear, they just shift...usually in the form of higher bad debt expense for providers, which is then born by higher premiums.

Insurance 101 preaches diversity, get everyone in the pool and you reduce uncertainty and thereby improve efficiencies and lower costs. ACA was a step, albeit not a great step, towards this. But, gutting the individual mandate significantly impaired the intended goal. Now GOP is looking to mop up the rest. 

Republicans Are Mocking Americans They Want to Take Medicaid Away From

 kurtster wrote:

Wow, could this be true? Kurt is making a clean break with Trump's deportation policy? 

In case you haven't noticed, Trump is not making any distinction between legal & illegal immigration these days. Anyone in the country that has not secured citizenship is fair game to be kicked out. This includes immigrants who have come here legally and may be fleeing war, or persecution due to their ethnicity or beliefs and looking for a better life and were taking the necessary "legal" steps to become citizens.

 kurtster wrote:
I found other studies with more-recent data, but they aren't as thorough (or transparent) as the Cato study and they tend to be fairly partisan. This one, for instance, from the Foundation for American Immigration Reform (an anti-immigration think tank) lists the total federal cost of illegal immigrants in 2024 at $66B. How do they get that number? It's not entirely clear, but it includes over $14B for CBP, ICE, and other enforcement costs, $5.4B for Medicaid birth expenses for US-born children of undocumented parents, $8B for "Medicaid fraud", and $6.6B for education. I covered the education bit earlier, and their number is high by at least $1B. They also include things like $200M for showboating the National Guard at the border, but that's chump change in these calculations.

At least they acknowledge that illegal immigrants pay taxes—$24.6B worth. They subtract out $8.4B for tax credits for a net of $16.2B. They also claim other estimates of illegal immigrant taxes paid are way too high but don't show their methodology so there's no way to compare their figures, we're just supposed to trust them on that.

By their numbers illegal immigration is a net federal cost of $50.2B.

But illegal immigrants don't impose a cost on us for hunting them down, rounding up grad students for protesting the wrong ethnic cleansing, incarcerating them, paying tin pot dictators in Central America to jail them in inhuman conditions, or military transports to fly them there—we impose those costs on ourselves. If we look at just the direct costs (that is, money spent for the benefit of illegal immigrants) what are American taxpayers paying for?

Again using FAIR's numbers it breaks down to $25.1B net cost. They also claim there are 15M illegal immigrants in the US (a number about 3M higher than most everybody else claims) but let's roll with that. That net benefit to each is $1,673*.

To combat that we are spending (at the federal level) more than $25.1B, ironically the same amount per person. 

I have a suggestion: allow legal immigration. Take away the incentive to cross illegally, let them work aboveboard (which will cause them to pay even more taxes), and make it possible for them to return to their home countries like they used to**. This would also reduce the social impact by giving them an incentive to come out of the shadows, do things like buy their own insurance, and report crimes to the authorities—but that won't come out of budget numbers.

*For the record I think FAIR exaggerates costs and underestimates taxes paid by illegal immigrants, but I'm using numbers generated by people who oppose immigration in general so you have less to whine about.

**For details on how US immigration policy and border crackdowns caused this shift see here.

 kurtster wrote:
Going out on a limb here but...

Your side (e.g. Stephen Miller) think that if it gets rid of illegal immigrants, the labor market for the jobs they held will necessarily tighten and cause a rise in wages for those jobs. That thinking assumes that wages for those jobs rise and fall freely according to supply of and demand for the relevant pool. But wages, esp. at the low end, are kept artificially low by large employers. So there's no guarantee that native workers will see their wages rise after mass deportations. 

And as islander and others have pointed out, working illegal immigrants grow the American economic pie more than they take from it. Get rid of those working immigrants and the economy shrinks. 

 kurtster wrote:
Again, you're wrong (and apparently not tired of it yet).

Again, here's the study I mentioned. It had negative impacts on everyone when they deported undocumented workers. 

https://www.chloeneast.com/uploads/8/9/9/7/8997263/ehlmv_draft_7-20.pdf

We find that SC is associated with a significant decrease in the employment share
of low-educated non-citizen male workers, who are likely to be undocumented. We find
no evidence that SC increased the employment rates of citizens. In fact, we estimate a
statistically significant decline in citizen employment. While this may be surprising when
compared to the predictions of the canonical labor supply and demand model, the results are
consistent with assuming that some citizen workers are complements for likely undocumented
workers. We provide empirical support for such complementarities by showing that the
effects on citizens are concentrated among workers in medium-skilled occupations and in
sectors that historically rely on low-educated non-citizen labor. Overall, the findings suggest
that immigration policies aimed at reducing the number of undocumented immigrants should
take into account the potential negative spillover effects on the labor market outcomes for
citizens.

Workers are a benefit to the economy whether they are documented or not. In fact, most of the licensing BS that I'll assume you support, does more to artificially tighten markets and distort the value of services provided. 

 kurtster wrote:
Comrade Kurt!

 islander wrote: 
Yes the loss of cheap and easily intimidatable, controllable labor.  It also keeps the wages down for those here legally. Not a benefit; to the illegal and us as a society. You want us to be dependent upon this type of labor which distorts the reality of what the actual costs for goods and services are.  If things cost more because citizens get paid the correct wages, so be it.

 Lazy8 wrote:

Most of them had a fondness for the jack boot all along, as long as they were the ones wearing them. Evidenced now by the proud boys being deputized as ICE... They also have discovered that they 'DO' like masks now.

 kurtster wrote:

There are several studies showing that both legal and illegal immigrants improve their local economies. I recently posted one that demonstrated significant losses when Obama deported large numbers of illegal immigrants.  You are the one who continues to cherry pick or use completely disingenuous studies to support your wrongheaded ideas.  I'm really surprised you don't get tired of being wrong all the time.  You're worse than a blind squirrel. 

 Lazy8 wrote: 
It is a nice report and it highlights the benefits of immigration, legal that is.  Yes legal immigrants greatly benefit the country.  I am all for legal immigration.  We need them as long as they come in legally.

This study does not include illegal immigrants in their data.  I found zero mention.  Perhaps you can help me out on that.

The study makes mention of the parameters for inclusion in their study.

One of them is this :

Our sample is restricted to 1994–2018 for several reasons. Before 1994, questions on birthplace, citizenship, and parental birthplace were not included in the survey.

Elsewhere it mentions the inclusion data for 2019 and 2020, but only in the Cato Model IIRC.

What that tells me is that only legal immigrants are being counted.   That citizenship status is recorded, yet there is no breakdown anywhere for those here illegally, allows this very reasonable conclusion.  Which is the subject of this particular discussion.  The expenses incurred on the US as a whole by illegal immigrants. Therefore it has no relevancy at all.

Also missing is any data involving the last 4 years which is when all hell broke loose.

Again, it is a fine study and shows the benefits of legal immigration.  But irrelevant.  Try again.  Or not.

 kcar wrote:

Starting with: is it OK to put your daughter and son-in-law in the White House as advisors when they have zero experience?

That is, is it even OK for Barack to put Michelle (a six-figure lawyer, so no slouch) in the White House? Would that have been OK? (Please, no squirrels)

 kcar wrote:

Because Trump is his Fuehrer, and can do no wrong.

It's interesting, Kurt, that you have so much to say about immigrants and government benefits but you're as silent as a ghost when it comes to Trump's corruption and cutting of those government benefits. 

Why don't you talk about the Trump Crime Family? 

 kurtster wrote:
Well, small-l libertarian, here's an exhaustive report from the Cato Institute.  It's about the fiscal impacts (not just on government budgets, but on the economy as a whole) of immigration. It deals mostly with legal but also illegal immigration.

And before you start: legal immigrants have access to government services that illegal immigrants do not, but both pay taxes. 

It goes into massive detail about the math and methodology of their results. It is, in a word, transparent. It uses historical data because when you do real social science you have to use the data you can actually get. This puts them at a disadvantage to groups like the Center for Immigration Studies—they can use more current data because they make it up. Good luck finding out their methodology.

You can lie in real time. Actual social science research can't keep up with that.

And yes, I advocate for open borders. I consider that to be the only position consistent with my commitment to human rights, which include the rights to live, work, and travel. These rights do not depend on where you were born, who your parents are, what you look like, or what language you grew up speaking.

And small-l libertarians are generally in opposition to the prosecution of victimless crimes and the jack-booted thugs that enforce them, but for some of them when it's brown people under the heel suddenly they get a taste for those boots.

 kurtster wrote:
And anyone with more melanin than you should be deported. Got it. 

 Isabeau wrote: 
FYT's

 kurtster wrote:

OOoo. Let's conflate compassion with 'open borders!' Magat monkeys are so fekking predictable.