Sitting with my colleagues in the East Room during the White House news conference July 23rd, I was struck by the President’s insistence -- without qualification or hesitation -- that enactment of his much-cherished America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 “will not add to the deficit.”
In claiming that the health care measure will not add to the deficit, Obama obviously set himself up for debate and criticism with Republicans in Congress. That is to be expected.
But in the process, he has also set the stage for debate with another entity that is explicitly non-partisan and independent: the Congressional Budget Office.
Created under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974, the CBO estimates revenues in the congressional budget process. CBO “scores” on proposed spending legislation include projections on the impact on the deficit and the national debt.
Less than a week before Obama made his claim about the health care measure not adding to the deficit, CBO released its preliminary analysis of the H.R. 3200 (the formal bill number of the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009). Completed in cooperation with the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the CBO analysis includes “estimates of the changes in the non-elderly U.S. population with health insurance coverage, the primary budgetary components of the bill’s major provisions related to insurance coverage, and a detailed table of the other provisions’ impact on federal direct spending.”
“According According to CBO’s and JCT’s assessment,” CBO Director Douglas W. Elmendorf wrote in a cover letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D.-N.Y.), “enacting H.R. 3200 would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period [Italics added].”
Elmendorf went on to explain that the “estimate reflects a projected 10-year cost of the bill’s insurance coverage provisions of $1,042 billion, partly offset by net spending changes that CBO estimates would save $219 billion over the same period, and by revenue provisions that JCT estimates would increase federal revenues by about $583 billion over those 10 years.”
There you have it: when one hears Barack Obama insist that his vision of health care “will not add to the deficit,” the logical response should be: “Take it up with the CBO, Mr. President.”
A Footnote: Although CBO and its directors are explicitly non-partisan and independent, congressional leaders name the director of the agency. Elmendorf, then, is the choice of Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Company. During an earlier stint with CBO, he worked as an associate analyst under then-Director Robert Reischauer. That was in 1993, when CBO made headlines by scoring President Clinton’s proposed health care plan much higher than the White House did. The CBO analysis was pivotal to the defeat of the Clinton plan.
In claiming that the health care measure will not add to the deficit, Obama obviously set himself up for debate and criticism with Republicans in Congress. That is to be expected.
But in the process, he has also set the stage for debate with another entity that is explicitly non-partisan and independent: the Congressional Budget Office.
Created under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974, the CBO estimates revenues in the congressional budget process. CBO “scores” on proposed spending legislation include projections on the impact on the deficit and the national debt.
Less than a week before Obama made his claim about the health care measure not adding to the deficit, CBO released its preliminary analysis of the H.R. 3200 (the formal bill number of the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009). Completed in cooperation with the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the CBO analysis includes “estimates of the changes in the non-elderly U.S. population with health insurance coverage, the primary budgetary components of the bill’s major provisions related to insurance coverage, and a detailed table of the other provisions’ impact on federal direct spending.”
“According According to CBO’s and JCT’s assessment,” CBO Director Douglas W. Elmendorf wrote in a cover letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D.-N.Y.), “enacting H.R. 3200 would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period [Italics added].”
Elmendorf went on to explain that the “estimate reflects a projected 10-year cost of the bill’s insurance coverage provisions of $1,042 billion, partly offset by net spending changes that CBO estimates would save $219 billion over the same period, and by revenue provisions that JCT estimates would increase federal revenues by about $583 billion over those 10 years.”
There you have it: when one hears Barack Obama insist that his vision of health care “will not add to the deficit,” the logical response should be: “Take it up with the CBO, Mr. President.”
A Footnote: Although CBO and its directors are explicitly non-partisan and independent, congressional leaders name the director of the agency. Elmendorf, then, is the choice of Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Company. During an earlier stint with CBO, he worked as an associate analyst under then-Director Robert Reischauer. That was in 1993, when CBO made headlines by scoring President Clinton’s proposed health care plan much higher than the White House did. The CBO analysis was pivotal to the defeat of the Clinton plan.
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