The Congressional Budget Office has provided updated projections for the cost of maintaining expanded Obamacare subsidies:
It's about $30-40 billion per year. That's less than half a percent of the federal budget. It would be a crime to cut this off, but that's what will happen if Donald Trump is elected president.
It's the least of our Trump worries, I suppose, but multiply it by a few dozen and it's emblematic of what Trump and a Republican Congress would do to make life harder for people.
But as many have observed -- see Lyndon Johnson on emptying one's pockets, or Davis X Machina on sparrows and curtain rods -- ending the ACA would appeal to the racism that ranges from casual to virulent and infests the Republican Party from top to bottom.
They will bankrupt themselves and impoverish their families as long as it means it will "hurt the people who deserve to be hurt" (to quote a Trump supporter).
The major component of Trump's appeal to his cult is that he promises to hurt the people they hate. He really doesn't have anything else.
Actually, even if Biden wins, you still need to pass expanded Obamacare subsidies through the House and Senate (I don't believe this can be accomplished via executive order): thus, its more complex than just Biden winning....
The idea that $40 billion dollars is "super cheap" makes me realize how old I am--that was about 4 times the federal budget when I was born.
Still it's worth the tax dollars.
Around 10x the federal budget when I was born....
Thanks for making me feel old. 😉
Nah, old would be being alive when Grover Cleveland was president 🙂
You must be extremely old. My oldest historical reference is a recording I once heard heard of a Roosevelt speech in which he said the war budget for 1942 was $56 billion.
1931?
And how many MAGA's will vote to cut subsidies they or members of their family receive? You know it will happen. And when it does, it is Obama's fault!
Il Duce hated Obama Care simply because he hated Obama. But for 1 vote (John McCain) he would have gotten his wet dream.
On Thursday, Biden should lead every question back to abortion, ACA, Jan 6, and that his opponent is a convicted felon, business fraudster, and sexual predator.
Trumpism, among other things, is filled with irony. They'll eliminate the ACA only to have the federal gov't spend even more subsidizing Americans. This is the less is more principle of this brand of conservatism.
One thing we really should learn from Trump (because his ridiculous supporters are so up front about it) is that an essence of "great America" if you will, for them is the false narrative that America is "great" because, unlike a bunch of other countries, including all of Europe, Americans work hard because here there are no handouts which make people lazy.
At some point, I don't know if I will live to see that day, it will dawn on millions of morons that America is not now, nor was it ever "great" because the people here are any better, or any more hardworking, than wherever they came from, nor is our system of government, or either party, better either.
Ok, its better than feudalism but other than that we do not have any better system than any other country.
America is great because Europeans pushed out Native Americans, end of story.
It was all the luck of the draw, if you will. I don't know how much more obvious it can be.
But until it is, the knee jerk opposition to any government program that actually helps anyone will be right there, in MAGA land.
Uh, the Argentines and Brazilians kicked out the Native Americans as well. And unless you are talking soccer, they are not great. Having good land with resources is nice, but its the people who create wealth, as Hong Kong and The Netherlands and New England show.
True, but due to my favorite treatise on this, Guns, Germs and Steel, Argentina and Brazil are nowhere near as lucky as the United States in terms of being in the correct latitude to be able to have an Industrial Revolution.
Note, for example, the similarities in latitude in the US and China.
Guns, Germs, and Steel was a marvelous book. Although sometimes it is a little geographically deterministic.
I just think that you underestimated the importance of culture in economic development. I mean yeah, we gotta a great chunk of land, but it was also and probably more the fact that our national ancestors came from NW Europe, which was the cutting edge of modernity.
And while I get your major point, I still think that the Liberal Democracies (including the USA) are great in that while there is some variation, people in those places experience the greatest degree of freedom, prosperity, and humane treatment that just about any group of humans ever have. (And of course I get and agree with the point that MAGA sucks, but especially on this comment board, that is almost an assumption...)
Is it indeed a certainty that if Donald Trump is elected the Republicans will control both houses of Congress?
It seems extremely likely that Republicans win both the House and Senate, although a tie in the Senate is possible. Both the House and Senate are designed to give rural voters greater representation, so it takes a wipeout election for Democrats to win all three.
https://www.270towin.com/2024-senate-election-predictions/#google_vignette
https://www.270towin.com/2024-house-election-predictions/
Frankly, I don’t know what Kevin is talking about. Trump will end that socialistic Obamacare and replace it with something much better and cheaper. The details? Those will be announced very soon and you will all be amazed at how great it is. Only Trump could have thought of it. That’s because of his association with M.I.T.
I hear his going to tell us all about it in two weeks.
Empty Wheel hypothesizes Trump landed $10 million from China in the fall of 2016,
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/06/23/an-egyptian-bank-claimed-details-of-a-suspected-10-million-payment-to-trump-might-be-in-china/
What did they get for it? He's been blowing squid 8nk about China ever since.