The House Republican budget would cut more than five trillion in federal spending over the next decade and abolish Obamacare while shoring up Medicare for generations to come, but it may still contain money for President Obama’s unilateral immigration actions.
The House GOP blueprint was unveiled last week, and budget hawks like Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., say it goes a long way towards getting our fiscal house in order. Yoho, who defeated a sitting Republican in 2012, says the budget offered by Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga., is very responsive to to the wishes of frustrated voters.
“I was one of those Americans that was fed up with what’s going on. I was just fed up to the point where I ran for Congress and got elected because I was tired of kicking the proverbial can down the road and problems not getting solved,” said Yoho.
“With this budget, the American people should be excited because it does cut $5.5 trillion in spending over the next ten years. It does that without raising taxes. It gives us an off ramp for the Affordable Care Act. It repeals all the taxes that are associated with that,” said Yoho.
Will those cuts be actual reductions in spending or cuts in the projected growth of spending?
“There will be actual reduction in the majority of that. If we tie this in to the SGR fix that’s going to come up with a complete repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate, that will help reform and make solvent Medicare for all generations ahead because it’s a permanent fix to it,” said Yoho, who elaborated more on how the GOP budget would suddenly shore up a Medicare program that bipartisan experts fear is teetering on insolvency.
“With the SGR fix coming up, it does a 100 percent repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate and gets government out of price fixing on the doctors’ side. It incentivizes doctors to have good outcomes and keep costs down,” he said.
Yoho says there’s no mystery to why Medicare is a mess right now and it’s time for some long-term assurance of its existence.
“People in government, people in Congress have allowed this to be kicked down the road to where the fix is going to be roughly $175 billion that we’ve got to come up with savings. But the savings over the course of the next 10-15 years will be in the trillions of dollars to the American taxpayers. Plus, it makes Medicare solvent for future generations,” said Yoho.
For younger patients, Yoho says this House Republican budget takes a firm repeal and replace approach to the president’s landmark health laws.
“It repeals it 100 percent. In addition, it repeals all the taxes. There’s over 20 taxes associated with that. And it puts in place health care reform like insurance sold across state lines for increased competition, It incentivizes the things that we want people to do,” said Yoho, referring to provisions allowing individuals to write off the cost of their health coverage the way employers do and contribute more to their Health Savings Accounts.
Yoho says regardless of the rosy scenario painted by President Obama and other Democrats, the facts on the Affordable Care Act are rather dismal.
“Over 59 percent of those people (who have enrolled in the exchanges) have been pushed into Medicaid, overburdening a social program that’s about to go broke. There was four million people or more that have lost their insurance either through their employer or it got cancelled and they got pushed into Medicaid. It’s smoke and mirrors on the numbers that they’re saying it’s such a great success. No, it’s not,” said Yoho.
While spending and health care reforms are major focal points of the House GOP budget, Yoho says the blueprint does not expressly rule out additional funds for President Obama’s unilateral immigration action.
“He can’t go forward with anything on illegal amnesty until the courts decide. Our goal is to bring up common sense, responsible immigration reform so that we don’t have this debate next year or five years from now, but that it’s fixed,” said Yoho.
Yoho was one of the most forceful opponents of funding the president’s actions. The issue even triggered his challenge to House Speaker John Boehner in January. He expects a vigorous debate on this issue as the process moves along.
“We’ll have to refund the government in September. Those fights will come up because DHS runs out of money in September, so we’ll have to have that debate and discussion again,” said Yoho.
That explanation also indicates a far different approach to the appropriations process with Republicans running Capitol Hill. Yoho says regular order will save taxpayers money and allow each provision of the budget to be actively debated.
“This budget brings us back to that process we call regular order. That’s what we got sent up here for, to stop kicking the can down the road. What that means is you go through your authorization process and then appropriations and you make the common sense reforms to these programs that we know are unsustainable,” said Yoho.
Yoho says recent history shows it’s easy for Congress to backtrack on vows of future belt-tightening, so Republicans must stay committed to making these tough changes.
“Each Congress from here on out will have the ability to change things. This is the roadmap so we can start making those reforms now. If we stay true to our word and stay on point, you’ll see the real savings in this,” said Yoho.
