All week long, congressional Republicans have been bad-mouthing the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and insisting that no one should pay any attention to reports the CBO releases this week.
House Budget Committee Republicans are making a pre-emptive strike at a forthcoming Congressional Budget Office report that they fear will be used by the chamber’s Democrats and the Kerry campaign to criticize the White House.
The CBO, whose work sparked similar partisan squabbling in August, does not discuss what reports or requests it is working on until the findings are ready to be released. But Republicans say they expect the nonpartisan agency to issue a report this week based on a request by House Democrats to recalculate the projected deficits from President Bush’s fiscal 2005 budget.
On Monday, Budget Chairman Jim Nussle’s (R-Iowa) top panel aide, Rich Meade, sent a memo to committee Republicans warning that the report “will be immediately used solely for political purposes” by Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) White House campaign.
“The majority or minority staff can easily calculate these deficit projections on their own using CBO’s data provided to us,” Meade wrote. “However, I suspect the reason the CBO is being asked to do the math is to lend the all-important seal of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to their partisan calculations.”
Is it me or is this argument inherently silly? Dems asked the CBO to prepare a report on projected deficits based on Bush’s own budget numbers. The Republicans aren’t complaining about the accuracy of the CBO’s research; they’re complaining that Dems might try and talk about the results of the research. And this is bad, why?
Regardless, it’s easy to see why the Republicans were so worked up; the CBO report came out and it points to a long-term fiscal disaster for the country.
Responding to an election-season request by Democrats, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Thursday that some of President Bush’s budget policies plus other costs would add $1.3 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade.
Republicans said the exercise was a blatantly political attempt by Democrats to use the nonpartisan budget office’s projections to attack Bush and the GOP.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Rich Meade, Republican staff director of the House Budget Committee, referring to Democrats’ unlikely chances of capturing House control in the November elections.
I have no idea what that quote means. Indeed, after the CBO study was released, Republicans throughout DC expressed outrage at the fact that the CBO even prepared the report in the first place.
What no one could deny, however, is the accuracy of the report and how, at a minimum, Bush plans to add at least $1.3 trillion to the national debt.
And keep in mind, that figure was based on a series of overly-rosy projections, with unrealistic assumptions including:
* Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy will expire;
* The AMT (alternative minimum tax) will not expand;
* Bush slashes spending on a series of domestic programs;
* And a gradual reduction of U.S. military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan, which seems highly unlikely.
But avert your eyes from such news, because, well, the Republicans would like you to.