Tickerguy wrote..

2. Congress changes the law so as to permit CMS to run without backing, that is, the entirety of their operating deficit shows up on the federal budget as a fiscal deficit. ... #2 will roughly double the federal deficit on an essentially immediate and permanent forward basis.

What part of CMS isn't shown on the budget? I can see that the 2018 MTS reported $1466.2b for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services while the budget only reported $971b for Medicare+Medicaid (582+389), but the total outlays and revenues are the same on both documents, so the missing amount must be in there somewhere, right? I understand the deficit will double within a few years, but what's the immediate effect you're talking about? Surely they wouldn't stop collecting the tax just because CMS was officially running unbacked - they'd continue collecting at least the same amount one way or another.
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https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-06....
https://web.archive.org/web/201810181252....