Although Congress has created the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as a nonpartisan advisory physique, an investigation into the CBO’s efficiency and the political historical past of its personnel reveals unimaginable credibility and leftist bias.
Democrats use the CBO evaluation of the closely debated funds settlement invoice to fight the historic tax cuts for Americans proposed by President Donald Trump, and are making efforts to reform this system throughout the federal authorities, together with making certain that American taxpayers should not on the hook for unlawful international healthcare.
To bolster their debate, Democrats and their media allies have resorted to widespread acceptance that CBOs are nonpartisan. Last 12 months, 1,358 completely different media tales added the phrase “non-partisan” to the start of the workplace’s title, in keeping with the American Accountability Foundation.
But the CBO’s broad historical past of overestimating the pursuits of Americans from public well being, underestimating the prices of Democratic insurance policies in the direction of taxpayers, and stacking decks towards Republican insurance policies reveals deep partisan establishments that affect lawmakers to additional affect the leftists.
FEC data present that, along with an unreliable historical past of predictions supporting almost $17,000 individuals donated to candidates and committees by CBO workers since 1986, solely $250 for the Republican candidate, a one-time donation to George W. Bush in 2000.
The CBO’s historical past of overestimating advantages from public well being initiatives has been utilized by lawmakers to justify monumental coverage choices.
For instance, CBO estimates that 25 million individuals will obtain compensation for Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges. However, lower than half of that estimate really registered in alternate is what many do to exchange the non-replacement coverage they misplaced after the ACA passes.
A sequence of current stories and Congressional investigations have revealed the diploma of readability of CBO reliability and bias.
A January report from the Centre for Economic Policy Innovation, entitled “How Budget Baselines Are Biased,” reveals the underlying biases cooked within the CBO’s ebook.
“In actuality, CBOs are required by regulation to distort their baseline in favor of upper spending and taxes,” the Blockbuster report discovered. “The 4 deviations from present regulation at baseline are mandatory for CBOs to include it within the regulation.”
During a February listening to earlier than the House Road and Means Committee subcommittee, Hayden Davlois of the Government Accountability Foundation testified to a poor report of the CBO’s monetary estimates.
The CBO predicted President Joe Biden’s unappointed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) would “have a web discount within the $58.1 billion deficit over the 2010 funds body,” Dublois testified. “But the CBO made that unsuitable. The 2024 replace by the CBO displays a brand new evaluation that the regulation really will increase the overall deficit by $300 billion over the following decade.”
In one other instance of the Democratic blue evaluation, CBO’s forecast that the IRS would gather about $7.2 billion of extra revenues as a result of passing of the IRA was stunning, 82% under the forecast, because the precise assortment is simply $1.3 billion.
Dublois shared extra, considerably inaccurate CBO forecasts associated to ACA and Medicaid.
In 2010, the CBO predicts that the ACA’s Medicaid growth will enroll 13 million wholesome adults in 50 states. “But by 2019, simply earlier than the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic – precise growth registrations had reached 19.5 million in 34 states that had adopted Medicaid growth by then,” Dublois testified.
And through the Covid pandemic, CBOs adopted a baseline for March 2020, “dramatically underestimating Medicaid spending between 2020 and 2023,” which signifies that they “overwhelmed a 20% extra over the CBO forecast throughout that interval.”
A 2024 report from the Government Accountability Foundation, which documented lots of the CBO’s “surprisingly false” scores, discovered that “sadly, members of Congress have found that members of Congress have made false choices on laws. Their errors.”
In addition to the prolonged estimation errors in Medicaid, we additionally embody “Early CBO estimates.” [ACA] Exchange registration has been turned off with a coefficient of almost 100%. ” CBO’s 2009 forecast is the UI part of ARRA. [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the Obama stimulus package] The $39.2 billion price within the 10-year funds framework was instantly rejected by the CBO, and a revised rating by the CBO after six years reveals that the precise price of the UI clause is $64 billion.
Additionally, whereas CBOs had largely underestimated meals stamp spending after the stimulus package deal was handed, they initially estimated the modifications to price $2 billion in a 10-year funds window. However, throughout the first 5 years, virtually the entire projected $20 billion spending was allotted. The 2019 CBO evaluation of its personal estimate concluded that the stimulus package deal “has elevated its complete SNAP spending by $43 billion over the 10-year forecast interval.”
In addition to portraying Democratic coverage priorities as extra politically interesting, CBO’s estimates undermines the attraction of Republican insurance policies.
A December 2024 report from House Ways and Means discovered that CBOs had been severely underestimating the financial advantages of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts beneath the Tax Cuts and Employment Act (TCJA). The package deal was finally handed with Republican assist alone, resulting in financial development that far exceeded the CBO’s forecast.
But as soon as Trump left the workplace, the CBO carried water for Biden’s signature tax minimize freebies for so-called “inexperienced” investments. The report contains the next:
The CBO initially acquired the Democratic Green Tax handouts, costing $271 billion. This was necessary to allow Democrats to make use of the settlement course of to cross the regulation. Six months later, after the regulation turned regulation, the CBO revised its preliminary price estimate to greater than 2.5 instances that quantity to $663 million. Many exterior entities have acquired IRA Green tax handouts as costing greater than $1 trillion, as a major expense.
CBOs produce other essential inaccurate predictions, together with:
In 2014, the CBO estimated that Medicaid growth beneath the ACA would price $42 billion in 2015, however the precise price was $68 billion, greater than 60% greater than forecast. In 2008, because the US fell right into a recession, the CBO predicted that precise GDP would enhance by 2.3% in 2009, and as an alternative signed 2.9%. In 2010, the CBO predicted that precise GDP development was a mean of three.2% from 2010 to 2016, however solely 2.1% to 50% greater than forecast. In 2013, the CBO predicted that 26 million extra individuals would register on the ACA alternate by 2017, however in 2017 it revised this determine to 10 million individuals. In 2014, the CBO estimated that the ACA Risk Corridor Program would win $8 billion over three years. We assumed that insurance coverage firms would make earnings from promoting alternate plans, however insurers would function danger hall obstacles of $2.5 billion and $5.6 billion in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
A more in-depth have a look at the political actions of CBO officers, significantly their well being evaluation division, reveals stunning leftist bias.
A report from the American Accountability Foundation dated May 7, 2025, obtained by Breitbart News discovered an astounding 84% of CBO medical workers. It analyzes a wide range of federal applications and insurance policies, together with Medicare, Medicaid, and grants, supplied by way of medical insurance exchanges.
Of the group’s 32 workers, 26 are registered or funding a Democratic candidate or associated marketing campaign group. The group contains the director, assistant director and all unit chiefs.
It might be even worse. One workers member has no affiliated with the celebration, and the opposite voted within the 2016 Republican presidential main in addition to within the Democratic main, with the celebration historical past of the 4 workers members nonetheless undecided.
Additionally, maybe essentially the most influential CBO workers, CBO’s itemizing chief economist Mark Doms, is a registered Democrat with a donation of $1,162.50 to Democratic candidates and committees.
The web site poses critical questions concerning the nonpartisan pledge that “conducts goal and unbiased evaluation and hires workers no matter political affiliation” of missed, seemingly politically distorted forecasts and personnel knowledge, together with HR knowledge, and forecasts predicted together with HR knowledge.
As Congress is contemplating historic reforms by way of the Budget Reconciliation Bill, lawmakers and voters might have good purpose to utterly ignore the CBO’s evaluation.