Who's Doug Elmendorf & Why Should You Care

Guess what? The Obama healthcare bill won’t save any costs, it will raise them (and raise them more than Democrats are predicting). Says who? Says Douglas Elmendorf.

Elmendorf currently serves as the Director of the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO is not, and never has been, a partisan office. The director is appointed by the Speaker of the House and Preident pro tem of the Senate. Elmendorf was appointed this January - by ... drumroll please ... Nancy Pelosi and Robert Byrd.

Elmendorf received his undergraduate degree in Economics from Princeton University in 1983 (Summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa). He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1989. One of the three members of his Harvard Ph.D. dissertation committee was Lawrence Summers (who served as chief Economics advisor to Barack Obama’s campaign and now serves as an adviser to Director of the White House's National Economic Council). Under Bill Clinton’s administration, he served as an economist for the Federal Reserve Board, Senior Economist to the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Treasury Department.

His expertise is in the areas of macroeconomics, public economics, and econometrics. This means he’s basically an “expert” as to how all of the different sectors of the economy work and affect each other, including the effects of governmental economic policy. He’s also never been a guest or commentator on the evil Fox News network.

But, we don't have time to listen to him. We've got a crisis; and, it needs to be fixed within 2 weeks. He's just some political hack. It doesn't matter that he worked for Bill Clinton, so did Dick Morris. It's just one guy's opinion.

I'm sure that Democrats, the White House and most political commentators will now set their sights on him and spend hours on your TV telling you why we shouldn't listen to him. But, think about this. Pres. Obama (along with Lawrence Summers) have spent months now telling us that we have to do this to keep from bankrupting our nation. They say that rising healthcare costs are causing the federal deficit and debt to skyrocket out of control. They say we have to do something now to reverse that trend before it's too late. Sound familiar? Have I hit all of the "talking points?"

So, what will they say about Elmendorf's analysis? Do you care?