WASHINGTON, DC — “It is indeed ironic that on the same day Speaker Pelosi rolled-out her 1,990 page, $1.2 trillion federal takeover of America’s health care system Representative Paul Ryan and I introduced H.R.3964, The Spending, Deficit, and Debt Control Act of 2009,” said Congressman Jeb Hensarling.  “Our bill would put an end to the budget gimmicks, smoke and mirrors that Democrats are using to hide the real cost of their government takeover of your health care.”

Hensarling noted that Speaker Pelosi’s bill is full of budget and savings gimmicks, such as:

• The legislation’s $104 billion in deficit reduction projected over the next 10 years is achieved mainly through timing gimmicks and $72 billion in savings from extraneous provisions.
• The bill dropped a Medicare physician payment increase (the “doc fix”) that was included in its earlier bill (H.R. 3200), with a plan to hide the $229-billion deficit increase in a separate bill.
• The government-run plan does not start until 2013, leaving much of its Federal spending hidden from the 10-year budget window.
• Less than 1 percent of the bill’s $1.05 trillion is spent in the first 3 years after the program starts, further masking the deficit impact.

“In the last year of the previous Administration, when the deficit was $300 billion and falling, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called that deficit ‘fiscal child abuse.’ At the beginning of this Congress Democrats talked a lot about fiscal responsibility, but unfortunately, that’s about as far as it’s gone under their control of Congress,” observed Congressman Hensarling.

“After winning a ‘Trifecta of Trillions’ earlier this year the federal takeover of America’s health care system makes the fourth trillion-dollar-plus bill the Democrats intend to ram through this Congress,” said Congressman Hensarling.  “Republicans have offered 40 different pieces of legislation in an attempt to get bipartisan compromise, to make sure that the uninsured get insured, that people with preexisting conditions get health care, and that we do this without breaking the bank, without raising taxes, creating new debt, new deficits, and new entitlements.”

Hensarling noted that, “We have a debt that is headed above $12 trillion, or more than $100,000 per American household, and rising; a deficit of $1.4 trillion, or $11,988 per American household, that will never dip below $500 billion for the foreseeable future; and unfunded liabilities of $62 trillion, or $530,899 per American household, that are only getting worse with every passing year.”

“In 2017 the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund (Part A) will be exhausted, an entitlement crisis exacerbated by Speaker Pelosi’s bill, which -- according to the Congressional Budget Office -- will increase the federal budgetary commitment to health care by $598 billion in its first ten years alone.”

“Putting this level of debt on our children is not merely bad policy, it is immoral,” concluded Congressman Hensarling.  “For the sake of our children’s future and the future of generations yet to come, at some point you have to stand up and say ‘Enough is Enough’ and begin to rein in the reckless and irresponsible fiscal policies of Washington politicians.”