Tax Cuts Don’t Pay For Themselves. A New Paper Says Medicaid Might.

A nonpartisan study says helping kids stay healthy has long-term fiscal benefits.

Conservatives have long badgered Congress’ own numbers crunchers, with some success, to say tax cuts aren’t as expensive as they look.

But in a turnabout, liberals now have something to cheer for from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. In a paper published last month, the CBO said Medicaid and other programs that provide a long-term boost for the recipients’ economic prospects may be far cheaper than their initial price tags, once those long-term effects are included in the calculus.

The study argues that those higher lifetime earnings would in turn boost economic growth, which would then result in more money sent to federal coffers in taxes in the decades ahead.

Gideon Lukens, director of research and data analysis with the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told HuffPost the CBO paper was significant because it took something on which there is broad scholarly agreement — programs like Medicaid can have a beneficial effect for enrollees far into the future — and then showed the budget impact.

“I haven’t really seen where other studies have done that, so I think it’s a really useful contribution,” Lukens said.