The CBO Gets It Wrong
So much has been made of the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) assessment of ObamaCare and its adverse impact on employment and the resulting "Hey! Look a bunny!" responses from the White House and other brain-impaired Democrats, that I fear that saying the CBO is wrong about their assessment will be taken as another Democrat talking point. Or if you prefer, lie.
On the contrary, what the CBO has indicated is accurate -- up to a point. But only up to a point. But accurate doesn't always mean correct. During the State of the Union speech, our president announced that domestically produced oil has, during his tenure, finally exceeded the amount of imported oil. And so it has. It was an accurate statement, but again, only up to a point. The fact that all that oil was produced on land over which Barack Obama could not exert any control was overlooked. So Obama's insinuation that he was due credit for this achievement makes his statement accurate, but clearly a lie.
The fact is that while the CBO is accurate regarding ObamaCare creating fewer jobs, the inference that people are choosing to work less is ludicrous. Jobs will not be created. Jobs that are will have to be those which are below the 30 hours per week threshold that would exempt them from employers being burdened with the significantly more expensive healthcare required by Federal law.
What the CBO fails to incorporate into the analysis is the recognition that the Affordable Care Act is not the only legislation or regulation that impacts the U.S. economy.
Offsetting the diktats of the ACA that might discourage Americans work incentive are the thousands and thousands of regulations that will tend to increase the cost of everything from new cars, food, energy for heating private residences, and on and on and on.
Those regulations will encourage people to work. It would not be surprising to see many people working two jobs just to make ends meet. Or in a married household, three or even four jobs (all of which are below the 30 hour per week threshold) might become the norm.
Obama's administration keeps telling us that they are doing everything in their power to create jobs, yet if ObamaCare really encourages people to work fewer hours, or even drop out of the workforce entirely, who exactly will be filling all these newly-created jobs? Oh, I forgot! All those newly registered Democrats that have been, until recently, been "living in the shadows."
So the CBO made an accurate statement, but didn't apparently look beyond the end of their noses. They got it wrong, even if what they said was accurate.
Jim Yardley is a retired financial controller, a two-tour Vietnam veteran and writes frequently about political idiocy, business and economic idiocy and American cultural idiocy. Jim also blogs at http://jimyardley.wordpress.com/, and can be contacted directly at james.v.yardley@gmail.com