Devastating to say the least.
Via Byron York:
When Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf appeared before the House Budget Committee on Wednesday, there were plenty of lawmakers, Republican and Democrat, who wanted to make points about Obamacare. Republicans stressed the CBO’s finding that Obamacare will create such a sharp disincentive to work that Americans will stop working to the tune of 2.5 million full-time jobs. Democrats tried to cast doubt on the number or, alternately, to suggest that Americans leaving the work force because they no longer need a job to secure health coverage would be a good thing.
The points had been pretty much exhausted by the time Republican Rep. Diane Black got her turn to address Elmendorf. Her question was straightforward: “What effect [will] the reduced labor force participation have on the economy?”
Elmendorf’s answer was simple, short, and devastating. “It is the central factor in slowing economic growth,” he said. “After we get out of this current downturn, but later in this decade and beyond, the principal reason why we think the economic growth will be less than it was for most of my lifetime will be a slower rate of growth by the labor force.”