Explaining The Difference

In the comments of this post, Tuerqas asked:

I am not sure I understand something, Owen.  If there is a 10 billion dollar difference, and the 15.2 billion dollar health plan is cut, then does that mean the Republicans offered a budget that added 5 billion in other areas ON TOP of the 3.something billion the Democrats added in fees, etc?  Wasn’t the Democratic budget going to increase the budget by something like 18.9 billion?  That means the Republicans are still incrasing the budget almost 9 billion.  What am I missing?

I thought that this was worth addressing in a new post. 

The Senate health plan does call for a $15.2 billion per year tax increase (in addition to their other tax increases). The reason why it shows up that way in the Senate budget is because the authority to levy the tax and fund the program does not begin until January 1st, 2009. What you see reflected in their budget is for the second half of the fiscal 2008-2009 fiscal year – January 1st, 2009 through June 30th, 2009, or $7.6 billion.

The plan will only be in force for 6 months of the 2-year budget cycle.  In the next budget, it would have to be fully funded at $15.2+ billion PER YEAR.  So the Senate’s budget actually guarantees at least a $22.8 BILLION tax increase in the next cycle - assuming their estimates are accurate.  That would represent roughly a 35% tax increase on top of the 23.2% tax increase they want this cycle. 

So… in this budget, the Senate’s total spending increase is $12.4 billion while the Assembly’s total spending increase is $2.7 billion, for a difference of $9.7 billion. 

1. Thank you. 
   Why is a 5% increase so ridiculously low in Government spending?  And it won’t be just 5%.  Standard procedure for the bargaining that is about to commence isn’t going to be:  We will drop this pork if you drop that pork.  It will be:  We will allow you to keep this pork if we can keep that pork.

   Posted by on July 12, 2007 at 1048 hrs