{"id":5860,"date":"2021-08-19T15:49:44","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T15:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=5860"},"modified":"2021-08-19T15:49:44","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T15:49:44","slug":"the-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-will-add-more-than-250-billion-to-the-deficit-does-anyone-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=5860","title":{"rendered":"The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Will Add More Than $250 Billion to the Deficit. Does Anyone Care?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the legislature’s nonpartisan number-crunching agency, says the bipartisan infrastructure bill would add about $256 billion<\/a> to the deficit over 10 years. The real figure is likely to be higher, because the package contains a few gimmicky elements that are designed to trick the CBO’s forecasting metrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest of those gimmicks is the promise that Congress will reallocate more than $200 billion of COVID relief funds to cover infrastructure costs. It remains unclear exactly what unused COVID funds will be redirected, and the bill only rescinds $50 billion in actual budget authority from previously passed COVID relief bills, according to an analysis<\/a> by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other proposals to save and redirect federal dollars to pay for the infrastructure bill are also unlikely to materialize. Take the $49 billion lawmakers plan to “save” by further delaying an already-delayed Trump administration regulation altering how prescription drug discounts are applied by health insurers. “Because the Congressional Budget Office projected<\/a> that the so-called rebate rule would increase federal spending in Medicare and Medicaid by about $177 billion over a decade, due to a rise in Medicare premiums (and therefore, taxpayer-funded subsidies for Medicare premiums), lawmakers get to count a further delay in the rule (beyond the Biden administration’s one-year delay) as ‘savings’ for the federal government,” explains<\/a> the National Taxpayers Union.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“When you filter out the gimmicks designed to game the CBO score of the infrastructure bill, the CRFB says<\/a> the package will probably add $340 billion to the deficit over 10 years.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But as the CBO’s report makes clear, actually paying <\/em>for the infrastructure makes those benefits bigger than they otherwise would be<\/a>. A fully offset infrastructure package would boost GDP by an estimated 0.11 percent over the next 30 years while a deficit-financed package would barely break even. That’s because, as the CRFB notes<\/a>, running higher deficits to pay for infrastructure spending will reduce private investment over the long term and, thus, lower future economic growth as well.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Will Add More Than $250 Billion to the Deficit. Does Anyone Care?<\/a><\/blockquote>