All Hail CBO
It's not at all clear whether Republicans or Democrats will end up being the political winner of health care reform, but it is absolutely certain that the Congressional Budget Office came out of the debate in a far better and more highly esteemed position than when it began.
At some point during the health care debate:
- Republicans and Democrats both cited CBO's numbers and rulings as the authoritative voice that validated what they were saying
- Debates in both houses were delayed until CBO's could complete its estimates
- Republicans happily and repeatedly used CBO's labeling of some of the Medicare savings as "double-counting as if the phrase was handed down from on high
- House and Senate Democrats eagerly cited CBO's projections (here and here, for example) of lower deficits from the health care bills as if they were gospel.
There were some allegations of collusion between CBO and the congressional Democrats during the health care debate. Megan McArdle posted that the cost estimate process was being gamed to get a certain result. Megan, however, never cited anything other than her own suspicions. And anyone who knows CBO knows that the analysts who work there so carefully guard the organization's reputation that something like that would be very difficult to do.
This is not, of course, the only time Congressional Budget Office has proven its value in a legislative debate, or even in a health care debate.
For example, it was CBO's judgment that the health care plan proposed by the Clinton administration should be counted as on-budget and, therefore, would increase the deficit that is often cited as the reason the bill became impossible to pass.
In the past I've said publicly that CBO is a collection of the most talented and least appreciated analysts in Washington.
Based on its performance during the health care debate and the way its numbers and analysis were used, it's now possible to say something even stronger. CBO is what most of us want a government agency to be: highly competent, nonpartisan, faceless, fearless, can't be bought, and extremely passionate about what it does and how it does it.
Gaming the Process
"Megan McArdle posted that the cost estimate process was being gamed to get a certain result. Megan, however, never cited anything other than her own suspicions."
As it is now, so shall it ever be.
Just out of curiosity, did Megan note that Paul Ryan's plan, which so many speak of as if it were ambrosia, is a pure example of that, since Ryan instructed CBO to "assume tax revenues of 19%" without any indication of how we are to get there?
(captcha: snorkels you, which I guess has stranger connotations now than it did several weeks ago.)
disagree
Stan I disagree. NO ONE can predict the future. Not even a dedicated government employee. The use of the CBO is a travesty. And an accurate retrospective view many years latter of all their predictions, would reveal as with all predictions: major major mistakes!
Predictions
Warren Metzler wrote:
"Stan I disagree. NO ONE can predict the future. Not even a dedicated government employee. The use of the CBO is a travesty. And an accurate retrospective view many years latter of all their predictions, would reveal as with all predictions: major major mistakes!"
I agree that all predictions are subject to error, some quite large. Any action taken today, or any inaction, will affect the future; thus, we cannot avoid using some projections, even if the are implicit. The CBO does a very good job in laying out possibilities subject to the constraints imposed upon them. If we take the trouble to understand what they do and how they do it, their work is very useful. My guess is that without CBO, partisanship would be even greater and outcomes worse than what we see today, a truly scary prospect.
CBO Sainthood...ahem...
Before putting up the CBO for "secular" sainthood and assuming its steely-eyed analytical excellence, perhaps someone/anyone should do the eminently easy task of examining the CBO's *previous* efforts at prediction and reporting back on how accurate *they* turned out to be.
Any takers?
Given the history of government projections about Medicare expenditures and the Social Security cashflow cross-over (in the red, as of, err, *now*) I think it is extremely reasonable for the majority of Americans to be unnerved and not terribly reassured by the supposed CBO hand-patting (which was actually mostly Dem-spin rather than CBO-statement...).
I'm aware that different entities made the Medicare and SS spending projection f-ups - but it all goes to show the difficulty of prognostication and the apparent assymmetry of directional error in DC...
McArdle
McArdle describes a CBO that's like an abused wife who can't abandon the bum (the identity of the bum varying with the party in power). While praising her fortitude, don't forget to pity her.