The joke that is the CBO
Here’s an explanation of how the CBO works—or fails to—because of the ridiculous rules by which it is bound.
I agree. As I wrote back in December 2009:
The CBO has become a way to give the imprimatur of fiscal propriety to bills that are essentially scams, and the CBO is powerless to do anything but be a yes-man to whatever a clever and duplicitous Congress manages to come up with.
Mmmm, let’s have some more of that tasty CBO sausage, with a heaping helping of garbage-in garbage-out.
I’ve written the following in comments recently: On one of Obama’s early legislation pkgs. (I’m thinking the huge stimulus package without which Obama repeatedly promised “gloom and doom” and a “Depression” to match 1929’s if not worse, the CBO produced a score that was not in concert with the Administrations claims. Doug Elmendorf, Director of CBO, was immediately hauled into the White House for a private meeting with the President. Needless to say, the CBO has not since produced scoring not in keeping with the President’s “neutral to the deficit” or “deficit reducing” claims, or whatever else was said to sell his legislation to the public!
This is besides the fact (and as an ex-accountant, I know) information can be presented in any number of ways so as to result in scoring desired.
Upshot: the “unpartisan” CBO is indeed a joke, and it’s claim to be accountable to neither party is a joke, as well.
By the way, it “just happens” that Dr. Elmendorf is — you guessed it — a DEMOCRAT!!!!!
I’d like to know if this link is an accurate description on the stuff they do
Err, here’s the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RON09jbubM
10000Pennies
What is this post essentially saying?
Well, consider the following excerpt from Roger L. Simon’s latest article on PJ Media:
“Opposition to Obama’s healthcare reform was grouped around two basic themes. One was ideological — that it was a statist restriction on the freedom envisioned by the founders of our country. The second was economic — we simply can’t afford it. Continuing the first of these themes has everything to do with human will and is subject to the mood of the populace. But the second is cold, hard reality. No jubilation over what happened Sunday night on the part of Obama, Pelosi and company can change that. If we’re headed for bankruptcy, we’re headed for bankruptcy. We may be a culture in denial, but sooner or later we’re all going to have to face the obvious. Entitlements must be paid for.”
Indeed they must. And Social Security and Medicare alone are already set to bankrupt the country — the addition of Obamacare will only propel us faster toward insolvency.
The real test will be how the country reacts to bankruptcy, or near-bankruptcy.
My prediction? Sunday’s vote was the ultimate pyrrhic victory.
The welfare state *will* destroy itself. It will because it must: it gobbles up more money than even the US economy can generate.
When the tsunami hits, as a nation we will have two options: (1) Face reality and do a total turnaround, via an instrument such as Paul Ryan’s Road Map; or (2) Accept tyranny and decline as the new normal.
I don’t see too many Americans picking option (2).
Neither do the Democrats. That’s why they want amnesty so bad: to turn this country into a banana republic, they will need a lot more people who accept living in a banana republic as normal.
That is why amnesty must be stopped at all costs.
JR Dogman: I agree about the extreme importance of the need to stop amnesty.
But I can’t help but wonder whether all those illegals are quite as much in the Democrat pocket as everyone assumes. Perhaps they are, of course. But I see them as having the potential to want to enjoy more of the fruits of their labors, too.
When they are not citizens they don’t pay taxes; they exist outside of those sorts of responsibilities. When they are citizens, it may be harder for them to avoid all of that, and they may suddenly find they become more fiscally conservative regarding taxes. Just a thought.
As far as the country going bankrupt, however, I have a concern about Cloward-Priven. As the country spirals downward, if Obama and company are firmly in control, they would use it as an excuse to get more and more centralized control (as they have so far with every crisis). It could take a long time—and a great deal of hardship, including actual bankruptcy—to stop them (like the collapse of the Soviet Union). And then where are we?
This may seem too apocalyptic, and I’m not saying it will happen. But I think we need to very seriously speculate about these things, because they are possible.
Neo,
Re illegals, the problem is they are uneducated and poor, and their demographic has typically been essential to statist ambitions. In contrast, the middle-class are a hard bunch to rally to the socialist cause. Alinsky knew this, which is why he developed his stealth methodology: convince them you are not radical, gain their trust, then bore in and make them hate the institutions they were led like sheep (Alinsky thinks) to love. Left alone, the middle class are fairly content; the middle class is a good station to work from if one seeks to become rich, as well as a good place to stay if money is less important to you.
Myself, I think we’re incredibly lucky to have such a cultural group as Hispanics wanting to be a part of our nation. They’re hard-working, have Judeo-Christian values, and if you turn on the Spanish-language channel with the sound off, you see people who look just like us. In short, they are ready to be Americans, every bit as much as my European ancestors were.
But the left is running the show right now, and they don’t want to make immigrants Americans; they want to make them foot-soldiers in the war to “fundamentally transform” this country. They promote non-assimilation, nationalism of any and every country but our own — and we all know the rest. Also, the job market is awful, so a little common sense self-protection is in order. We can’t save, or employ, the entire world, and in any event our first duty is to our countrymen and -women, who need to work — any work is better than none.
So now is not the right time for immigration “reform” — after the November elections, perhaps.
As for the Cloward-Piven angle, it certainly seems possible — Obama’s policies seem geared to injure the private sector, while beefing up the public. Whatever his motives are, however, he won’t reap any reward from collapsing the economy. The country is just too damned big, too well-armed, and there are just too many states that will refuse to stand for ANY president sending in the National Guard or whatever. Also, The people who join the N.G. and the military are — surprise! — overwhelmingly conservative. You can bet they don’t think much of their current C-in-C.
If the economy collapses, the government will collapse along with it; there is no way Americans are going to take orders from a president who drove the debt through the roof, taxed and spent, killed the job market, then got on TV and blamed his predecessor for the problems he created. It just won’t happen.
As I’ve been writing in my posts of late, I can’t see how the welfare state can survive. Looking at it realistically, can you? The money’s just not there, and things cost money. If the economy collapses, I say the welfare state as presently structured — including Social Security and Medicare — goes with it. We’ll be in survival mode, and people will want to know what went wrong and how to get back to normal — not how to adjust to the new normal of Great Depression 2.0 and permanent national decline. We’ve been too well-off for too long, so unless Obama comes up with a memory-killing drug to put in the water supply, he’ll be lucky if he’s allowed to sit out the rest of his term sucking his thumb in the Oval Office, while the governors and legislators like Rep. Ryan take the lead.
So… I wouldn’t say I’m *happy* at the moment — the thought that we might have to go bankrupt to finally wake up and fix this mess is hardly cheery — but I am optimistic.
Has anyone actually started any kind of internet resource that actually keeps track of just how often – and how badly – CBO estimates are off?