| Our resident baseline expert Glenn Kessler was recently on vacation. And true to form, while floating down the Mekong River, he thought of the best way to explain the whole “baseline” talking point. It’s pretty simple, actually: Look at how politicians say Medicaid spending goes up while taxes go down under the GOP health bill. A baseline measures the impact of policy changes in government spending and taxes versus current policies. The baseline records what would happen if nothing is changed and current policies remained the same. You may have heard President Trump and other defenders of the GOP health law trying to claim that Medicaid spending goes up, not down, as a result of the health bill. The actual dollars spent on Medicaid does go up under the bill, but much more slowly compared to current law. Measured against the baseline — as in, compared to what the spending would have been under current law — funding for Medicaid would be $160 billion lower under the health bill. Yet you may have heard the same politicians claim there is a tax cut in the bill because it repeals Obamacare taxes. The bill does reduce taxes relative to the baseline. But if you use the same logic that Medicaid spending is not cut, you can’t argue that taxes get cut. That’s because the actual dollars in tax revenues still grow, yet at a slower pace than under current law. If a politician says there are tax cuts, they must also say there are Medicaid cuts. If a politician says Medicaid spending is growing, they must also say taxes are growing. Anything else is just spin. (Thanks to the Mekong River for contributing to this fact check.)  (giphy.com) We’re always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can also reach us via email, Twitter (@myhlee, @GlennKesslerWP or use #FactCheckThis), or Facebook (Fact Checker or myhlee). Read about our rating scale here, and sign up here for our weekly Fact Checker newsletter. Scroll down for this week’s Pinocchio roundup. — Michelle Ye Hee Lee | 
Twitter
Facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment