Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about how it's official.

Republicans have to cut Medicaid or Medicare to meet their budget target.

I know. I know. For a while, I've been saying, along with most people,

who have looked at the numbers and can add, but now it's

official from the Congressional Budget Office.

The CBO is a nonpartisan internal think tank for Congress that basically acts as accounts

and scorekeepers to keep everybody on the same page.

They've become more and more important as more members of

Congress choose to get their information from Facebook memes. They put out the numbers. I'll put the

link to the letter down below. Sorry, it's in PDF format. The House Budget Reconciliation Package directs the House Energy and Commerce Committee

to cut programs under it by $880 billion over the 10-year window in the package.

According to the letter from the CBO, which was requested by the ranking member of the

Energy and Commerce Committee and the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the ranking

member of the Budget Committee. If you exclude Medicare, funding under the committee's jurisdiction

totals $8.8 trillion over the 10 years. If you exclude Medicaid from that $8.8 trillion,

there's $581 billion in funding during the period.

Uh-oh.

581 is less than $880, that they've been directed to cut.

Even if you were to cut every other penny from the budget that is indicated to be under their jurisdiction, they have to cut almost $300 billion from Medicaid.

But wait, there's more.

Part of the $581 billion is the Children's Health Insurance Program or CHIP.

...