Thursday, February 2, 2012

can we believe CBO estimates?

CBO Congressional Budget Office, makes predictions of Federal government revenue, deficits, debt, and so on. Typically they are asked to predict the effect of laws (Obamacare, Bush tax cut extentions, hiking taxes on the wealthy) upon the Federal fisc. Unfortunately, CBO predictions are often pure BS. For instance CBO predicted that Obamacare would save money. Yeah right.
CBO predictions are based upon unrealistic assumptions. Such as, Congress won't ease the Alternate Minimum Tax (which they do every year). Or that Congress won't pass a "doc fix" easing Medicare fee cuts (which they do every year).
The House of Representatives spent today arguing over reform of the CBO estimating process. The Republicans want more realistic estimates. The democrats stand foresquare for bull crap estimates.

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