The Face of Health “Reform:” Higher Interest Rates
Wanted to pass along this Wall Street Journal article from this morning highlighting the spike in interest rates this week, as Democrats enacted their government takeover of health care. The article notes that “weekend passage of health care rekindle[d] fears of rising deficits.” The piece suggests that investors do not believe the President’s pronouncements that spending $2.6 trillion to create a new entitlement will reduce federal deficits, and are instead looking for Congress and the White House to re-establish fiscal discipline.
While the impact of these gyrations may seem abstract to most Americans, the article also notes that most mortgage rates are tied to Treasury rates; thus, if Treasury rates rise, millions of Americans already struggling to afford their mortgages will face new financial hardships – putting any potential rebound in the housing market in significant doubt. Thus the long-term cost of Democrats’ government takeover of health care will extend far beyond the $500 billion in job-crushing tax increases, and pervade every area of the American economy through skyrocketing federal debt and rising interest rates.