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It might have been worth reminding readers of this fact since it seemed that Speaker John Boehner had forgotten it. A NYT article on the Obama administration’s decision to rely largely on individual’s self-reporting of their eligibility for employer provided insurance when awarding subsidies through the health care exchanges includes a quote from Boehner:

“The president’s decision to use the honor system to hand out subsidies, I think, exposes taxpayers to massive fraud and abuse.”

The government relies on small business owners to truthfully report their income for tax purposes. There is vastly more money at stake in the taxes owed by small businesses than the subsidies for people who lack insurance. If Speaker Boehner believes that many people would lie to get an insurance subsidy then he must believe that small businesses cheat the government out of hundreds of billions of dollars a year in taxes.