AMERICAblog News: Sorry Boehner, you don’t get to overrule CBO

More on the Republican’s trying to alter the facts…

From John Arovosis at Americablog.com

It’s really quite egregious what the Republicans in the House are trying to do, now in their second day of running the US House. The Republicans are trying to make it so that CBO is no longer the arbiter of how much legislation costs, and whether it adds or subtracts from the deficit.

For those who don’t know, the Congressional Budget Office is an independent agency of the Congress. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans run it. It is completely independent. But the Republicans are unhappy that CBO has concluded, repeatedly, that last year’s health care reform legislation will save over $100bn over the next ten years, and they’re even more unhappy that CBO has just upped its numbers to $230bn for the cost of repealing HCR over the next ten years.

So, when they’re confronted with incontrovertible facts, the Republicans attack the source, and lie.

Every single journalist working in Washington, DC knows about CBO. They know CBO is independent, and that CBO is what we use to “score” legislation, period. The Republicans can not be permitted to get away with removing CBO as the final arbiter of how much legislation costs. The damage to decision-making in Washington would be tremendous. The Republicans in the House literally issued their own analysis today of what they think health care reform will cost. And nobody cares. It’s irrelevant what the Republicans in the House, or frankly the White House, “thinks” health care reform will save us. What matters is what independent impartial arbiters say, and that’s CBO.

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