Boccia: US government shutdown ‘pointless’
Amy Curtis reports for Townhall:
Romina Boccia, Director of Budget and Entitlement Policy at the Cato Institute, told Reuters, “This was a pointless government shutdown, as I said from the very beginning. Democrats gained no more leverage during the government shutdown.”
“In the end, the Democrats did not have their demands met. Instead, they agreed to a deal that Republicans had offered back in September, which basically said that we will negotiate the Obamacare subsidies with you after we fund the government,” Boccia added.
Watch the short Reuters clip below.
Boccia: America cannot afford extending Obamacare COVID credits for the wealthy that only drive up health care costs further
Boccia discusses the end to the government shutdown and what’s next on BBC News:
Boccia: Deficit-financed stimulus checks are inflationary
Zach Halaschak reports in the Washington Examiner on Trump’s $2,000 tariff dividend payments:
Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, said that if the stimulus spending is deficit-financed, it would likely be inflationary. She also highlighted that Trump intends to gear the $2,000 payments toward people who are not wealthy.
Boccia pointed out that when wealthy people get payments like this, they are more likely to put those funds into savings. However, lower- and middle-class taxpayers are far more likely to spend the money.
The Federal Reserve has notably pivoted to cutting interest rates, with the intention of supporting economic activity. If the Fed is loosening its monetary policy stance at a time when the government is sending people $2,000 payments, Boccia said, the combination could be inflationary.
“So if you double that — rate cuts with an inflationary stimulus check — you’re going to likely see a small, one-time uptick in inflation as a result of that,” she told the Washington Examiner.
Obamacare COVID Credits get fact-checked
Amy Sherman fact-checked some recent Democratic talking points for PolitiFact, including Rep. Lofgren’s (D-CA) claim that “It would cost $38 billion to extend ACA credits next year and prevent millions of people from losing their healthcare. Reminder: Trump sent $40 billion to Argentina for no reason.” The verdict: “Lofgren’s statement about the cost of ACA enhanced subsidies is in the ballpark, but she exaggerated what the federal government sent to Argentina.”
Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, said factoring in direct costs, interest payments and spending in other programs averages around $48.8 billion more each year.
h/t to Adam Michel (Liberty Taxed) who wrote “Total spending, a better measure of the size of government, would increase by more than $488 billion.”