How Come This Wasn’t In The Headlines At This Time Last Year?

Here’s some testimony from the House Budget Committee today. The Democrats like to trot out Congressional Budget Office figures to support Obamacare; they never trotted this one out, for sure…

Chairman [Paul] Ryan: “[I]t’s been argued…that the new health care law will create jobs and increase labor force participation. But if I recall from your analysis, it was quite the opposite. Is that not the case?”

Director [Douglas] Elmendorf : “Yes.”…

[…]

Rep. [John] Campbell: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, we’ll — and Dr. Elmendorf — and we’ll continue this conversation right now. First on health care, before I get to — before I get to broader issues, you just mentioned that you believe — or that in your estimate, that the health care law would reduce the labor used in the economy by about 1/2 of 1 percent, given that, I believe you say, there’s 160 million full-time people working in ’20-’21.  That means that, in your estimation, the health care law would reduce employment by 800,000 in ’20-’21. Is that correct?

Director Elmendorf: Yes. The way I would put it is that we do estimate, as you said, that…employment will be about 160 million by the end of the decade.  Half a percent of that is 800,000.

Via the Weekly Standard.

This thing will put the equivalent of the population of South Dakota out of work over the course of 10 years and we’re told we’re supposed to tolerate it?

Remember Ronald Reagan’s nine most frightening words in the English language? “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

Please, let’s get rid of this law. The Supreme Court’s a fine venue for doing that; let’s do that first.

UPDATE: And now some video of this affair…