The new attack line on the Senate version of the AHCA is that it will “cut Medicaid.” The narrative being pushed is that poor people will be cut off and out on the streets if Medicaid funding is reduced in any way at all. The narrative is an illustration of how math works in Washington D.C.

Kellyanne Conway was on “This Week” and tried to talk to George Stephanopoulos about how the budget is actually written.

“These are not cuts to Medicaid,” Conway said to ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” Sunday.

“This slows the rate for the future and it allows governors more flexibility for the future with Medicaid dollars,” she said.

“If you are currently in Medicaid, if you became [a recipient] … through the Obamacare expansion, you are grandfathered in. We’re talking about in the future,” Conway said.

When pressed by Stephanopoulos on how the proposal doesn’t amount to cuts when it directly curtails funding for Medicaid, Conway said the administration sees its actions as putting Medicaid back to pre-Obamacare levels.

“We don’t see them as cuts, it’s slowing the rate of growth in the future and getting Medicaid back to where it was,” she said.

Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer put it this way:

My 1st job on the Hill was in '83. The Fed gvt spent $19 billion on Medicaid that year. When I was at the WH in '01, we spent $129 billion.

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) June 25, 2017

Today, Federal Medicaid spending is $389 billion. Under GOP reforms,it will increase to about $500 billion in 2027.

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) June 25, 2017

With Obamacare, it goes to $624 billion in 2026. In Washington, spending always goes up. It's just a matter of now much.

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) June 25, 2017

A cut is not a cut when it’s not removing money that you actually HAD in the first place. This would be the equivalent of your boss telling you that you are going to get a 5% raise each year. But then the company has an off year, and the boss tells you, “Sorry, we’re only going to be able to give you a 3% raise, not 5% like we had promised. There just isn’t money in the budget for 5% this year.”

Is that a cut in pay, when you are still getting a raise? In Washington D.C., the spin is YES, THAT’S A CUT! Even when the budget is clearly giving Medicaid more money, Democrats are getting to scream about cuts.

Trump’s proposed spending for Medicaid points upward, too—just not as sharply.

Under his budget proposal, Medicaid spending would rise from $378 billion this year to $524 billion in 2027. That’s a 38 percent nominal increase.

True, inflation will reduce the effective size of either increase to some extent. And population growth could increase demand for Medicaid and other social programs, although population growth in the U.S. is the slowest it’s been in nearly a century.

Either way, the Medicaid budget is going to grow. But under Trump’s proposal, it would grow more slowly. This is how Democrats and the media can scream about supposedly savage “cuts” to the program.

The same goes for Medicare. Under the current baseline, Medicare would grow from $593 billion to $1.19 trillion. Under the Trump budget, it would grow to only (!) $1.16 trillion.

So, why doesn’t the media actually report this accurately? Fleischer has his theory:

But why doesn't the press report ALL the numbers? They don't cover the news fully and accurately. They're biased toward conflict, not facts.

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) June 25, 2017

And we MUST slow the growth of the federal government down somehow.

If current trends continue, by 2044 Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and interest on the debt will consume 100 percent of federal revenue. Everything else will be financed with debt—and debt will reach 150 percent of GDP. That’s roughly where Greece stood five years ago.

Anyone remember just how well Greece has done with all its debt? Anyone? Oh, they got another EU bailout recently. Germany essentially controls Greece through sheer economics.

The United States already carries a debt load that would crush most other nations. Could we maybe slow it down a little by not giving Medicaid as big a raise as they were promised? A raise is still a raise, even if it isn’t as big as you were hoping. But in Washington D.C., you can throw a tantrum about not getting everything that you wanted, and the press will report that you had something taken away. Even if the only thing that was taken away was the promise of more money, not the money itself.