Action picks up in Washington, D.C.

Major committees in Congress are moving quickly – some would say too quickly – on legislation that will have a great impact on our health and our pocketbooks. The bills that are advancing are quite momentous. If they were being shaped by sound, well-researched analysis, perhaps the proposals wouldn’t be as scary. Unfortunately, much of the health care and energy legislation is being developed more by deal-cutting than by what works in the real world.

The health care legislation is a prime example. The cost estimates for the bills being shaped in various committees range from $1 trillion to $3.5 trillion over a 10-year period. With the budget deficit for next year already slated to be almost $2 trillion, even the spend-happy Congress is under pressure to pay for whatever is proposed and not simply add the cost to the ever-increasing federal deficit.

One of the major taxes being discussed to pay for the health care bills is a tax on employer-provided health insurance. Such a tax could raise almost $500 billion to offset the cost of covering more of the uninsured and underinsured. The problem is, it could blow a hole in the foundation of our health care system that is based on coverage paid for all or in part by employers.

Some of the loudest critics of this tax proposal are the labor unions that have negotiated labor contracts with Cadillac benefits largely paid for by their employers.

The staunch opposition of the unions is leaving its mark. One of the major Senate proposals now calls for creating an exemption from this tax for – you guessed it! – labor unions.

If such a plan passes, non-union workers could be subject to having their employer-provided health insurance premium payments taxed as ordinary income. That means that, in addition to the regular income tax rate, they are subject to applying to this benefit, they would have to pay Medicare and Medicaid taxes on the amount as well.

Their employers would also have to pay their share of the Medicare and Medicaid taxes.

Non-union employers and employees would have to pay the tax while their union counterparts would escape the burden.

Substituting politics for sound policy decisions is very much at play with the energy legislation under consideration in Congress as well.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is determined to have “cap and trade” legislation – that would limit carbon dioxide emissions and drive up energy costs – enacted by the end of summer.

But Pelosi and Company ran into a wall of opposition from many members of their own Democratic Caucus who are concerned about the economic impact of the legislation on their constituents. Particularly upset are farm state Democrats who believe the legislation could jeopardize their re-elections. The Waxman-Markey bill cannot pass without those key votes.

So what happened? Deals were cut to placate the concerns of some but left the constituents of other congressmen (many in “Red States”) on the hook for paying potentially huge increases in energy costs.

This is no way to run a railroad. If a complete revamp of the nation’s health care system is a necessity, then everyone-union members included-should have to pick up the huge cost of paying for it. If significantly increased energy costs are the price that must be paid for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, then everyone in every region of the nation should have to bear those costs.

There are sound reasons for opposing both the “cap and trade” legislation and the health care bills. Playing politics with who gets the bill for them only adds fuel to the fire.