“They Need to Go”: House Will Vote on Eliminating ObamaCare Slush Funds as Part of Mandatory Spending Cuts
Red County.com is reporting that “billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded Obamacare slush money will be among the programs targeted” soon as part of the new House majority’s “broad assault on wasteful mandatory spending,,.” That effort “began last week with passage of two bills saving taxpayers as much as $9 billion,” including one beginning the process of shutting down the TARP bailout program. More from RedCounty.com: “’As the first major act of the new majority, House Republicans voted en masse to repeal Obamacare in its entirety, via H.R. 2,’ said the source. ‘If the Senate won't pass H.R. 2, then Republicans in the House will repeal ObamaCare chunk by chunk, including these wasteful mandatory spending slush funds.’ Legislation to eliminate the Obamacare slush funds is expected on the floor ‘soon,’ the source reports.
The Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee convened a hearing last week to examine the ObamaCare slush funds, which were established and financed immediately by a Congress that failed to pass a single spending bill or even a budget last year. Talk about priorities. Funding ObamaCare means funding the expensive mandates, penalties, and bureaucracies that families and small businesses can’t afford and 200 economists have called “major barriers to stronger job growth.” That’s why the new House majority’s ongoing efforts to cut spending to help end uncertainty for small businesses and help them begin hiring again will include voting to eliminate these ObamaCare slush funds.
“A March 7 internal memorandum by House Energy & Commerce Committee Republicans details some of the Obamacare slush funds that could be targeted. The slush funds include billions of dollars in mandatory spending accounts that were tucked into the final health care legislation by the Democratic-controlled Congress last year. One such fund, for example, ‘was designed to provide the Secretary [of Health & Human Services] funds to spend at her discretion above whatever spending amount Congress appropriates,’ the memo notes. ‘These mandatory spending slush funds were set up by the authors of ObamaCare to stay on the books automatically, year after year, with little or no oversight,’ the source notes. ‘These accounts are outrageous, and they need to go.’”