Lets play a game, its called Count the Strawmen:
1. Do you want to see 16k IRS agents?
2. Do you want 159 Agencies?
3. Do you want a huge underfunded mandate?

Well, i guess if you frame healthcare like that, how can you say yes? These are EASY questions for Newt to argue against, why? Because no one will agree to these statements. So Technically, Newt is right, the people do not want THESE particular things, so technically Newt isn’t lying, but making easy arguments that he can attack, rather than actually delving into the healthcare bill is logically boggling at best, and intellectually bankrupt at its worst.

I can do the same thing though from the left:
1. Do you want insurance companies to deny you health coverage?
2. Do you like it when health care companies arbitrarily raise their rates?
3. Do you want the market, which has failed over the past two years, to dictate which members of your family get health insurance?

If I frame questions like this, its easy for me to attack them. Why? because I’m pretending like my questions are the ones that are actually a part of the core ideasof the argument presented in the bill. If I asked any of the 6 questions to the american public, 95% will say no, and 5% will say they like pie.

The real problem is that Newt isn’t tackling the core issues of HCR with any substance, but pretending like HCR can be boiled down to three issues which are only tangentially, if that, related to the HCR law.

But because I’m not disingenuous to political debate, lets attack Newt’s three points:
1. The real issue isn’t hiring 16k regulators (That isn’t much compared to how many regulators there actually are in America) but the substance of their job. If their job is to enforce the laws as set forth in HCR what is the big problem? Imagine a similar industry, say meat inspection. having MORE people look at your meat before it hits your dinner table doesn’t make the government bankrupt. (Key point more regulators doesn’t necessarily mean bad governance). Secondly, the 16,500 number is pretty much crap http://​factcheck​.org/​2​0​1​0​/​0​3​/​i​r​s​-​e​x​p​a​nsion/
2. There are 159 new agencies. Some of this number is probably true, but remember that agencies are pretty loosely defined: Each tax credit program is an agency, each funding mechanism, each division, every consolidation. Under the Administrative Procedure Act (the act the defines what agencies are) ‘agency’ means each authority of the Government of the United States, whether or not it is within or subject to review by another agency. That’s a broad, very broad, term meaning numerous things that you wouldn’t commonly think of as agencies, will be put into Newt’s 159 number. NOTE how the IRS argument and the 159 agencies argument are close to one another, tricking the unwary viewer into believing that an agency, as commonly understood, means something like IRS (when legally, the term doesn’t just apply to commonly thought of agencies like IRS, EPA, and other alphabet soup)
3.Underfunded mandate…well, that is nice to say, but the CBO says this thing generates a net positive after couple years. They are a nonpartisan entity, solves the problem. Another problem though, is that the first two issues raised by Newt is that government is expanding (New agencies, More agents) But then he complains about underfunding the bill, which means he is mad that the bill isn’t being full funded. Full funding of course, generates the resources for more agencies and more IRS agents, and better probabilities of success for a healthcare bill he doesn’t like. What can possibly account for Newt’s obvious contradiction in argumentation? Black magic, because facts and reality are not on his side.

At either rate. Thanks for playing the strawman game.