CBO…Joke or Gold Standard

Not too many years ago, Joe Biden, then-Vice President Biden, spoke on behalf of a bill he and President Obama were pushing in the Congress. He referred to the CBO that had scored the cost of the bill as “the gold standard.” He claimed you could not find a member of Congress who would doubt or question a CBO evaluation. The CBO is the Congressional Budget Office which is non-partisan and is charged with putting a dollar value on a bill and its impact on the deficit. The CBO has been working on a score for the Build Back Better bill, and the number is changing minds about the CBO.

Many numbers have been tossed around trying to pin an actual price tag on the BBB Bill. The President and the Democrats say the bill will cost $1.75 Trillion. They also say that the bill is paid for, and nobody making less than $400,000 will see their taxes increase. Everyone knows this is a lie, and I suspect even the Democrats know they are deceiving the American people. The Dems are playing a shell game with the numbers.

The Republicans, and two critical Democrats, Manchin and Sinema, know that the cost will be closer to $5 Trillion. That is why this bill has little chance of passing. As long as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are voting NO, the votes are not there to put this bill in front of Biden for his signature. The CBO said the cost of the bill over ten years is $3.5 Trillion. This CBO score has led Jen Psaki to call it a Fake score and the President to say it’s a joke. So, what is it, Joe? Is the CBO the Gold Standard or a Joke? Both answers came out of your mouth.

The bill is difficult to score because it was written to make it seem affordable. To make it simple, say there are ten major social programs or tax cuts in the plan. It would be honest if you cost these for the ten-year life of the legislation. The programs, once implemented, will never be stopped. The current plan has some facets scheduled for 1-3 years, but the price is spread over the ten years. This misrepresentation is just a disservice to the public and a lie. This piece of legislation is good for one thing. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said, “use it to line gerbil cages.” Senator Kennedy is always good for a sound bite, and on this topic, he did not disappoint. The Build Back Better does not deserve a signature from the President.

It does not matter what the ten programs are because the Republicans disagree with every one of them. The false presentation of the proposed legislation is the problem here, not the Fake price tag declared by the CBO. The other issue is the exploding National Debt. Since the start of the Pandemic, the debt has risen from $22.7 Trillion to $27.8 Trillion. That increase belongs to both Trump and Biden. Biden has put another $1.1 Trillion on in 2021. The debt has seen a 27% increase in less than two years, and Biden wants to add another $3 Trillion. Nobody, no Democrat or Republican, ever presents a plan to pay down our debt. They ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist. Just like your credit card bills, you may put them off, but eventually, you have to pay. Someday, Uncle Sam will need to dig out his checkbook, and that check will have a lot of zeros on it.