Stop Bashing the CBO, Republicans

(Bloomberg View) -- The Congressional Budget Office is under fire.

The nonpartisan agency, which is responsible for producing impartial analysis for use by Congress, was the subject of a bizarre attack ad by the White House last month. Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump's budget director, has publicly questioned whether “the day of the CBO” has “come and gone.” Former House speaker Newt Gingrich recently advocated: “Abolish CBO. It is totally destructive. It is totally dishonest.” Last week, members of the House Freedom Caucus authored amendments that would cut the CBO's funding in half and eliminate the division responsible for producing cost estimates of legislation.

This is all ridiculous.

It is normal (if less than utopian) for politicians to exaggerate the benefits and understate the costs of policies they support. Part of the CBO's job is to lay out those costs and benefits in an objective, impartial manner. It is therefore par for the course -- and often healthy -- for CBO analysis to be criticized. What is not normal is the attempt to discredit the agency itself.

The current campaign to do so has been motivated by the CBO's estimates of the effects of various Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. The agency poured cold water on GOP health-care proposals with its estimates that millions fewer would be covered by insurance if those plans were enacted.

Conservatives are right to question these estimates. In my view, CBO's analysis has some missteps. Most significantly, its assumption that Obamacare's “individual mandate” is extremely effective, responsible for many millions of Americans being insured, is much too strong, which means CBO's estimates of the increase in the number of uninsured if the individual mandate were repealed are much too large.

But CBO's basic assessment of the GOP replacement plans is correct: They would result in a large increase in the number of Americans who do not have health insurance. The problem with the GOP's Obamacare replacement plans has not been the CBO. It has been the plans. Rather than trying to tear down CBO's legitimacy, the GOP should focus on crafting better legislation.

The GOP is unwise to delegitimize the CBO even out of pure political self-interest. The agency frequently produces analysis that Democrats could live without. When President Barack Obama wanted to raise the minimum wage, CBO estimated that hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost. CBO analysis finds that Obamacare reduces employment. It finds that reducing Social Security benefits is better for economic growth than raising Social Security taxes, and the agency frequently discusses the negative economic impact of higher marginal tax rates. CBO's 1994 analysis of President Bill Clinton's health-care proposal played a role in its ultimate failure.

Republicans are in power now, but they won't be forever. When Democrats are back in charge, they are likely to exaggerate the benefits and understate the costs of policies they champion. Republicans will be grateful then for a fully intact CBO, producing analysis the rest of Washington believes to be credible.

Delegitimizing the CBO also puts more power in the hands of the White House and executive departments. CBO analysis and information is produced at the request of Congress, for use by Congress. A discredited CBO would lead Congress to rely on the executive branch for information and analysis of legislation. CBO was created as part of a broader battle over the balance of power between Congress and President Richard Nixon. Congress shouldn't tilt that balance more toward the president.

Attacks on the CBO are additionally concerning because they are part of a growing hostility towards expertise. From vaccines to the benefits of free trade to the safety of genetically modified food, expert opinion seems not to matter as much as it should. Conservatives should not contribute to this problem by discrediting the public-policy expertise offered by the CBO.

Of course, experts can be wrong. I often find myself thinking a particular CBO analysis is a little off base, that I would have used different assumptions, or done the analysis differently. There is often significant uncertainty in analysis as ambitious as that frequently produced by the CBO. And it would be good for the CBO to be more transparent about its analysis and with its models.

But models and analysis cannot be, and are not intended to be, gospel truth. Among all government agencies, CBO consistently produces the most useful, most impartial, highest-quality nonpartisan analysis of public policy issues and proposals. Questioning the CBO's integrity and professionalism is absurd. It's time to stop attacking the umpire, and refocus on throwing strikes.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg View columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the editor of “The U.S. Labor Market: Questions and Challenges for Public Policy” and the co-editor of “Economic Freedom and Human Flourishing: Perspectives from Political Philosophy.”

To contact the author of this story: Michael R. Strain at mstrain4@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jonathan Landman at jlandman4@bloomberg.net.

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