Sold!

Yesterday President Obama sent Peter Orszag out on the media tour to sell his Universal Healthcare Reform package. Mr Orszag is the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. I believe he was given this task because some of the numbers just don't add up. I think we can agree from the biography below Mr Orszag is very well educated.

After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy with high honors (1987), he earned an A.B. summa cum laude in economics from Princeton University in 1991, and a M.Sc. (1992) and a Ph.D. (1997) in economics from the London School of Economics. He was a Marshall Scholar 1991–1992, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.[2] He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science.

Unfortunately like most of his advisors, Mr. Orszag has no practical experience in the private sector. See below.

Orszag was a senior fellow and Deputy Director of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he directed The Hamilton Project and (in conjunction with Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute) the Pew Charitable Trust's Retirement Security Project.
He served as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy (1997–1998), and as Senior Economist and Senior Adviser on the Council of Economic Advisers (1995–1996) during the Clinton administration.

Orszag was director of the Congressional Budget Office from January 2007 to November 2008. During his tenure, he repeatedly drew attention to the role rising health care expenditures are likely to play in the government's long-term fiscal problems—and, by extension, the nation's long-term economic problems. "I have not viewed CBO's job as just to passively evaluate what Congress proposes, but rather to be an analytical resource. And part of that is to highlight things that are true and that people may not want to hear, including that we need to address health-care costs."[6] During his time at the CBO, he added 20 full-time health analysts (bringing the total number to 50), thereby strengthening the CBO's analytical capabilities and preparing Congress for health-care reform.[

So you can see where one might take exception when Mr. Orszag states that the taxes proposed would not have a significant effect on small business. I've noticed he's never operated or even been employed by a small business, or any business for that matter. I'm finding his credibility a little suspect in this dept. How about you? Especially when the same people told us they "underestimated" the severity of the recession, that's why the stimulus package isn't effective. Numbers on paper and theories taught by professors with no practical experience are no substitute for hands on application.

I also had a problem with their math. If America was paying attention they informed us they planned to spend one trillion dollars over ten years to gain a savings of six billion over the same period, in the Medicare program. Yet they can't see why the Congressional Budget Office is telling them this program isn't budget neutral and will in fact increase the national debt over the next ten years. Now you know why Joe Biden is telling everyone you have to spend money to save money. They actually expect us to believe a trillion spent to save six billion is sound economic policy. Does anyone else wonder how these people have lived this long? They appear to be a danger to themselves. Do we send them all to Washington so they can be watched as a group?

Thanks for all the wonderful feedback about Sunday's post! I'm humbled that it made everyone think!

God Bless
Capt. Bill