Democrats just can’t seem to get a break on their budget numbers. It seems like every time they try to convince the public that they’re being good stewards of the country’s fiscal future, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shoots them down.
First there was the Democratic claim that the various House and Senate health care reform bills would “bend the curve” on health care spending. Not so, said CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf. Health care spending would go up—significantly.
Then, in an effort to get American Medical Association (AMA) buy in for their legislation, Democrats proposed fixing the “sustainable growth rate” (SGR) provision in Medicare that forces doctors’ reimbursement rates down if Medicare spending grows too fast.
But that fix added costs to the health care bill. Democrats argued that it really wasn’t a new expense so much as fixing an old problem, and so shouldn’t be pegged to the bill’s costs. No dice said the CBO.
Then the president claimed last week that his budget “reduced federal spending over the next 10 years by $2.2 trillion” compared with where it had been headed. That statement got Factcheck.org to write: “Not true. Even figures from his own budget experts don’t support that. The Congressional Budget Office projects a $2.7 trillion increase, not a $2.2 trillion cut.”
The CBO’s, and especially Elmendorf’s, principled stance in the midst of Democratic criticism—even having to make a trek to the White House for discussions (or a scolding)—is to be commended.
And it has many conservatives and Republicans genuflecting to the “well-respected” and “unbiased” CBO. But the praise is overblown; the CBO will not be our new BFF (Best Friend Forever).
The CBO often comes out with some whacky assumptions and nob-headed estimates, and the organization will surely do so again. Praising it too much may come back to bite in the future.
For example, Elmendorf claims that the health reform proposals don’t bend the curve on health care spending. But he isn’t proposing more market principles to solve the problem. He’s suggesting giving an unelected committee of bureaucrats heavy-handed price-control authority.
Had the House bill insisted on implementing strict price controls to hold down costs, the CBO might well have agreed. And most of us wouldn’t be praising the CBO analysis, but condemning it—like we’ve done so often in the past.