Pay-go gets passed, then it gets bypassed

They're playing us for fools, because they know most of us have the attention span of an 8 year old with ADD high on crystal meth. So they tell us they're going to pay as they go, and you think great! Then after you've consumed a few episodes of Survivor and Project Runway, they start spending like drunken teenagers with a stolen credit card. Don't be fooled into thinking these hacks are trying to save the American economy. They're trying to destroy it - both democrat and republican alike. And they're doing a very efficient job of it.

The Hill -

The ink is barely dry on the pay-as-you-go law, and Democrats are seeking to bypass it to enact parts of their job-creation agenda.

Democratic leaders said extensions of unemployment insurance and COBRA healthcare benefits should be emergency spending that isn’t subject to the pay-as-you-go statute, which requires new non-discretionary spending to be offset with spending cuts or tax increases.

With current extensions of unemployment and COBRA benefits set to expire at the end of the month and the jobless rate still near 10 percent, Democratic lawmakers want to pass the extensions quickly, without having to find offsets for the costs.


This year, facing record deficits and a debt that has exceeded $12 trillion, Democrats touted the new pay-go requirements as a necessary step to get spending under wraps. President Barack Obama signed the pay-go bill into law on Feb. 12 and Democrats are ready to waive those requirements to help get the economy going.


“Assistance to unemployed workers during periods of high unemployment are always classified as emergencies,” a House Democratic leadership aide said. “That’s why they were done that way under the [House] jobs bill passed in December — while everything else in the bill was paid for.”


The six-month extensions of the unemployment and COBRA benefits made up roughly a third of the House Democrats’ $154 billion jobs package.


Included in the jobs bill as emergency spending were another $23.5 billion in state Medicaid payments and $2.6 billion for an expansion of the child tax credit and small-business loans. The rest of the package — infrastructure spending and fiscal aid to state and local governments struggling to keep workers — was paid for by redirecting money set aside for bank bailouts.


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is also pushing for emergency extensions of the unemployment and COBRA benefits not subject to pay-go requirements.


“He believes that providing assistance to families who have suffered a job loss is critical to getting the economy back on track,” said Reid spokeswoman Regan LaChapelle. “Extending unemployment compensation and COBRA health insurance premium assistance are important for these families and certainly meet the definition of ‘emergency spending’ contemplated in the pay-go legislation.”

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