Both Democratic and Republican senators who negotiated a bipartisan infrastructure bill have claimed the legislation is “paid for.” But a budget watchdog group says the bill only pays for about half of the $548 billion in new spending.
Issues: federal budget
Correcting Trump’s Press Conference Misinformation
Buttigieg Gives Trump Too Much Blame for Debt
Larry Kudlow’s Revenue Deception
Double-Counting Growth
Cruz’s Conservative Credentials
Deficits Falling (From Way Up)
‘Record Revenues’
GOP Budget Revives ‘Obamacare’ Claims
The release of the House GOP budget by Rep. Paul Ryan has sparked a resurgence of false and misleading claims about the Affordable Care Act, which the budget seeks to largely repeal. On the Sunday talk shows, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the head of the Democratic National Committee, and Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, each distorted the facts regarding revenues raised in the health care law. And Ryan wrongly said the law would take money away from Medicare and ration benefits for seniors.
Underselling the Sequester Cuts
An ad from a fiscally conservative group makes a true but misleading claim that the sequester only amounts to “a 3 percent cut in federal spending.” A majority of federal spending is exempt from the sequester cuts, so the parts that are not will be cut much more deeply than that. For example, defense spending (other than for military personnel) will be cut by 8 percent across the board, and nondefense discretionary spending will be cut by between 5 percent and 6 percent.