March 21, 2010 11:52AM # Former CBO Director: ObamaCare Would Add $562 Billion to Federal Deficits By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) --- SHARE In *The New York Times,* former Congressional Budget Office director [Douglas Holtz-Eakin strips away the budget gimmicks that Democrats use to hide the cost of the Obama health plan](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21holtz-eakin.html): > Removing the unrealistic annual Medicare savings ($463 billion) and the stolen annual revenues from Social Security and long-term care insurance ($123 billion), and adding in the annual spending that so far is not accounted for ($114 billion) quickly generates additional deficits of $562 billion in the first 10 years. And the nation would be on the hook for two more entitlement programs rapidly expanding as far as the eye can see. > > > The bottom line is that Congress would spend a lot more; steal funds from education, Social Security and long-term care to cover the gap; and promise that future Congresses will make up for it by taxing more and spending less. What could possibly go wrong? Best line: the CBO “is required to take written legislation at face value and not second-guess the plausibility of what it is handed. So fantasy in, fantasy out.” (The Congressional Budget Fantasy Office has a nice ring to it.) Holtz-Eakin is currently president of the [American Action Forum](http://americanactionforum.org/about). ##### Related Tags [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).