Obama Double Standards on Signing Statements and Medicare Reform
As previously discussed, the Administration failed today to send to Congress legislation to remedy general revenue funding shortfalls in Medicare – a requirement codified in statute. Almost as interesting however is WHY President Obama chose to ignore this requirement.* The White House hasn’t talked about the Medicare funding warning mechanism (aka the Medicare “trigger”) much – probably because doing so would draw attention to the fact that health “reform” diverted savings from Medicare to establish new entitlements, engaging in fiscal double-counting and budgetary prestidigitation that did little to resolve Medicare’s structural shortfalls.
But on the one occasion when an Administration document did discuss the Medicare “trigger” – the Analytical Perspectives to the President’s April 2009 budget submission – the Administration claimed that “in accordance with the recommendations clause of the Constitution, the President considers this requirement to be advisory and not binding.” This wording is particularly ironic, as it echoes the signing statement on the “trigger” issued by President Bush at the time the Medicare Modernization Act (which included the “trigger” mechanism) was enacted in 2003.
It should be noted however that President Bush, unlike President Obama, followed the statutory requirements and submitted Medicare reform legislation under the “trigger” as required in February 2008 – meaning his concerns over entitlement spending, and desire to propose solutions regarding same, outweighed any concerns about constitutional prerogatives. (The “trigger” proposals were introduced by request in both chambers as bill H.R. 5480/S. 2662 of the 110th Congress.) President Obama apparently feels no such compunction to put comprehensive entitlement reform ahead of any separation-of-powers concerns, or for that matter the political benefit he may perceive from avoiding the issue until after the next election.
So after promising during his presidential campaign that he would NOT use presidential signing statements to “get [his] way,” President Obama is now relying on a signing statement by President Bush to avoid putting forward concrete proposals for Medicare reform – effectively attempting to get his way by avoiding the big issues of entitlement reform 18 months before his re-election bid. But, with federal deficits running at record highs, some may wonder whether ducking on the biggest issue of our generation – massive and unsustainable federal debts sparked largely by uncontrolled entitlements – represents the kind of change the American people can believe in.
* To be sure, the President’s budget does propose SOME savings from Medicare. But the total savings in Fiscal Year 2012 – $1.6 billion from Medicare, Medicaid, and other government health programs combined – is comparatively miniscule compared to the “at least $40 billion” of spending reductions in FY2012 from Medicare alone that the trustees said would be needed to meet the “trigger” requirements. Moreover, the President proposes spending its budgetary “savings” on a two year Medicare “doc fix” costing $54 billion, meaning total Medicare spending would actually increase during the fiscal years examined by the Medicare “trigger” under the President’s budget – meaning the proposals are clearly insufficient to meet the statutory requirements. See pages 194-96 (Table S-8) of the budget, and pages 52-55 of the trustees report, for additional details.