Debunking that "The Taxes Start Now" Lie

by folkbum

Ezra Klein helpfully provides this graph:



You will notice that the orange bars, meant to represent the revenue (or cost savings) of the health care bill just passed, are negative this year and wee tiny for the next two years. For all the handwringing among the righties about "the taxes start now" nonsense, they're actually exactly wrong about that.

You'll note that this chart also handily debunks the notion that this is a "takeover" of the health care sector or of 16% of the economy. While indeed $180 billion seems like a lot of money to spend or to count as revenue/ savings (looking at the far right of the graph), in 2019 the US is projected (.pdf) to spend $4.5 trillion on health care. For those lacking calculators at the moment, that means that when this bill fully kicks in, this bill will be responsible for about 4% of health care spending. It would take an extreme amount of dishonest manipulation to try to sell the idea that this is a "takeover" of anything.