Small Business Bill and Medicare
One provision in the small business bill (H.R. 5297) the President is scheduled to sign today would divert nearly $2 billion from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. While some have argued the trust funds are accounting mechanisms that may not accurately reflect America’s entitlement liabilities, this latest development is important for multiple reasons:
- In his address to Congress last September, President Obama promised that “not a dollar of the Medicare trust fund will be used” to pay for the health care bill. The small business bill fails the President’s own test, by diverting revenue from the Medicare trust fund – on top of hundreds of billions in trust fund double-counting included in the health care law itself.
- At a time when the Administration is attacking Republicans for what they claim Republicans would do to reform America’s entitlement programs, why is the President about to violate his own pledge to Congress not to undermine Medicare’s solvency? (Or, to put it more colorfully, perhaps people who live in White Houses shouldn’t be throwing stones…)