Paul It has been months since the health-care reform bill was passed into law.

As is so typical, this massive legislation was passed with a sense of urgency so acute that leadership declared America could not afford to wait until legislators, their staff and the general public had time to thoro ughly read the bill.

The truth comes out event ually, however. Much like the recently discovered exemption from Freedom of Information Act requirements for the SEC that was slipped into the equally massive and “urgent” fi- nancial reform bill, we are finally seeing what other insidiousness has been hiding in the fine print of the health-care bill.

It seems all provisions in this poorly written and conceived monstrosity need to be repealed.

One such disaster waiting to happen is one of the revenue generating provisions used to claim that the health-care bill was “paid for.” Seventeen billion in additional tax revenues is supposed to come from an onerous new IRS reporting requirement that any taxpayer with business income who spends over $600 in one year with one business will have to report those expenditures to the IRS.

Mind you, this is a cumulative total of $600 in transactions in one year. This will involve so much extra accounting and paperwork that the IRS claims it will be unable to deal with it effectively, and even the American Institute of Certifi ed Public Accountants (to whom it should be a boon) is against it.

Apparently, they realize they’ll actually lose customers, especially small businesses, to bankruptcy.

Gold dealers are especially alarmed by this provision, as most of their transactions easily top $600. This represents a significant outlay of time and paperwork and no additional revenue for businesses with which to hire people. Not to mention, this makes every business a de facto IRS agent, as if they didn’t have enough to worry about already.

Several other legislators see how unreasonable this is and are trying to repeal it.

However, this would simply mean that $17 billion in health-care funding will have to come from somewhere else, and no good options exist. Taxes from some other equally bad collection scheme? Borrowing and more debt? Creating more money from thin air and adding to inflationary pressures?

The best answer, of course, would be to repeal the entire health-care law, along with all other unconstitutional spending.

But Congress is more likely to continue the shell game to cover the fact we are broke and can afford none of this.

This whole idea of “paying for” new programs is a political euphemism that suggests raising taxes is just as good as cutting spending since neither one increases the national debt.

Washington needs to stop creating new programs and spending so much money. That would be true fiscal restraint.

Ron Paul represents the 14th Congressional district of Texas.