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The Congressional Budget Office’s budget and economic outlook released this month projects that real Gross Domestic Product will grow by 3.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018. That would mark a 15-year high. “In CBO’s projections, real GDP expands by 3.3 percent this year and by 2.4 percent in 2019,” says the CBO report. “It grew by 2.6 percent last year.” The last time real GDP grew by more than 3.3 percent from the fourth quarter of one year to the fourth quarter of the next was in 2003, when it grew by...

In January 2016, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected economic growth for 2018 to be 2.3% and for 2019 to be 1.9%   Now the office projects that GDP will expand by 3.3% in 2018 and 2.4% in 2019, and then it will slow down.  Why would anyone believe these people's long-term projections when they are frequently so far off on their short-term projections?  Why do the media report the numbers as if they were gospel when they are just guesses? The tax cuts for individuals and corporations are all still in effect until 2025, so why the massive slowdown after just one...

There is an old saying that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and we've learned that again with the Congressional Budget Office and its latest highly misleading fiscal forecast. For years, we've been trying to get the CBO to use real-world scoring that reflects how businesses, workers and financial markets react to changes in tax rates. But no go. This is why the left is having a field day with the CBO's forecast that deficits under President Trump will average a trillion dollars a year for the next decade. This is supposed to be a result of Trump's...

Step one: Scream that the GOP tax reform bill would be a "massive attack" on the middle class.  Step two: Concede that actually yes, nearly all middle income earners would get a tax break under the bill.  Step three: Call for its repeal anyway, effectively demanding a tax increase -- a "massive attack," one might even say -- on middle class Americans and US businesses.  It sounds like Bernie Sanders has picked up the same tax hike hymnal from which Nancy Pelosi was singing last week: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called Monday for the Republican tax law to be repealed...

Congress’ chief scorekeeper said Wednesday it botched some of its original Obamacare estimates, and its employees have to make “trade-offs” as they confront the heavy workload from lawmakers. Keith Hall, director of the Congressional Budget Office, said they were off in their guess for enrollment in Obamacare’s exchanges, though he said so were other analysts. “Sometimes it’s really hard to estimate these things,” Mr. Hall said Wednesday. “Certainly with the exchanges, we were off — we weren’t as far off on things like the actual spending, some other things — but everybody else was as well. We can be off...

Efforts by Republican lawmakers to repeal the Affordable Care Act in recent months have repeatedly collapsed after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scored the various bills using a closely guarded analytic process done entirely behind closed doors. As Republicans released proposed legislation, the CBO announced its views about its effect on the federal budget and how it would affect the number of people without health insurance but didn’t provide a clear account of how those numbers were reached. The lack of transparency about the basis for the CBO’s findings makes it difficult for either experts or the broader public to...

If you’ve read a newspaper or watched cable news in the last month, you’ve probably seen someone say that the Senate GOP health care bill would “kick 22 million Americans off of their health insurance.” But it’s not true. New information from the Congressional Budget Office—leaked to me by a congressional staffer—shows why. CBO’s faith in the individual mandate’s magical powers For years, the CBO has been convinced—despite real-world experience to the contrary—that Obamacare’s individual mandate is the biggest reason why that law has increased the number of Americans with health insurance. When Senator Barack Obama ran against Hillary Clinton...

If you’ve been following the health care debate for the past several months you’ve seen the estimates put out by the Congressional Budget Office. All of those estimates have shown millions fewer people would have insurance in 2026 under the GOP plans. In fact, different approaches to the bill haven’t seemed to make much of a difference in the CBO’s projections. From National Review: Do you want to repeal every word of Obamacare and replace it with nothing? CBO says 22 million fewer people would have health insurance. Do you prefer replacing Obamacare with a system of flat tax...

I think I've found the core problem with health care in America. And guess what? It involves Delta Airlines! A few weeks ago, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow was going on and on about a "single insurance provider" that pays for 49 percent of all births, as well as full health care costs of almost 40 percent of all children in the United States. This single "insurer," Maddow said, was the biggest "health insurance provider in the country by a mile." Maddow was talking about Medicaid, which, of course, is not "insurance" but "welfare." When we're allowed to call things whatever we...

As the CBO studies the revised Senate healthcare reform bill, both sides of this debate await their prognostication regarding the economics and numbers of covered individuals.  Their analysis may provide cover for the difficult political decisions that the spineless Republicans will make regarding any reform legislation.  Already, the Washington Post is calling its analysis “fake news” as it fears its analysis will improve the prospects of passage of a revised Senate bill. The CBO was created to allow Congress an analysis of legislative costs independent of the OMB analysis.  The OMB, which can be subject to the political whims...

Budget: President Trump's budget plan doesn't come close to balancing the books, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But it does cut the deficit in half, even while reducing taxes. The CBO's analysis of Trump's budget says that it would, if enacted, produce a deficit of $720 billion in 2027, not the small surplus Trump claimed. That's what made the headlines. But as if often the case, it's what didn't make the headlines — or get pundit tongues wagging — that matters. In this case, it's the fact that almost the entire difference between the CBO's and Trump's view is...

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said Wednesday the Congressional Budget Office sabotaged scoring of the Republican health care bill. (Photo/AARON P. BERNSTEIN/REUTERS) July 14, 2017 OAN Newsroom The Congressional Budget Office says President Trump’s proposed budget would slash the deficit and greatly help the economy. Analysis by the CBO claims the 2018 budget would reduce the deficit by $160 billion, while increasing the GDP. Additionally, cuts to health care spending would save the economy over one trillion dollars over the next decade. The White House says it is thrilled by the CBO’s analysis, and claims the president’s...

(CNSNews.com) - Both the Congressional Budget Office and the White House Office of Management and Budget project that federal spending will top $4 trillion for the first time in fiscal 2017, which began on Oct. 1, 2016 and will end on Sept. 30. In its “Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2017 to 2027” published last week, CBO projected that total federal spending in fiscal 2017 will hit $4,008,000,000,000. That is up from the approximately $3,853,000,000,000 that CBO and OMB say the federal government spent in fiscal 2016. In President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget proposal, the OMB estimates...

The controversial “Obamaphone” program, which pays for cellphones for the poor, is rife with fraud, according to a new government report released Thursday that found more than a third of enrollees may not even be qualified. Known officially as the Lifeline Program, the phone giveaway became a symbol of government waste in the previous administration. Now a new report from the Government Accountability Office bears out those concerns. The report, requested by Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat, also says the program has stashed some $9 billion in assets in private bank accounts rather than with the federal treasury, further increasing...

The amount of money the government spends on programs and the amount it collects in taxes could change from the budget office projections, so the office warns that the Treasury could run out of funds even earlier. Currently, the federal deficit stands at $693 billion, which is an increase of $134 billion than what it projected in January. The federal government has an outstanding debt of $19.8 trillion, which includes $14.3 trillion in public debt and $5.5 trillion held by government accounts. Spending on major government programs such as Social Security and Medicare causes the amount of borrowing to increase....

The CBO says the Senate health reform bill would leave 22 million more people uninsured in 2026 compared to current law. That’s a slight improvement over the House bill which the CBO said would leave 23 million uninsured the same year. The CBO does note that the majority of this change next year would be the result of eliminating the penalty on not having insurance. From the CBO report: CBO and JCT estimate that, in 2018, 15 million more people would be uninsured under this legislation than under current law—primarily because the penalty for not having insurance would be...

Senate Republicans’ bill to erase major parts of the Affordable Care Act would cause an estimated 22 million more Americans to be uninsured in the coming decade — about 1 million fewer than similar legislation recently passed by the House, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Some 22 million Americans could lose their health insurance over the next decade under a Senate bill to replace Obamacare, a congressional report says. However, the bill would reduce the budget deficit by a total of $321bn (£252bn) in 2017-2026, the non-partisan Congressional Budgetary Office said. Similar legislation passed by the House of Representatives was also said to be likely to leave millions uninsured. A number of Republicans have expressed reservations about the Senate plan. The draft legislation, unveiled last week, is unlikely to be approved by Democrats, who see it as cruel and unfair. President Donald Trump's Republican party...

Uncertainty Surrounding the Estimates The ways in which federal agencies, states, insurers, employers, individuals, doctors, hospitals, and other affected parties would respond to the changes made by the legislation are all difficult to predict, so the estimates discussed in this document are uncertain.

Debtor Nation: In its latest long-term budget outlook, the Congressional Budget Office warns that our budget is seriously out of whack and endangers our nation's future. While the report will likely be ignored in Washington by politicians who like spending your money, American taxpayers would be wise to heed its message. The CBO has its issues as a prognosticator, especially when it comes to "scoring" congressional bills. But its long-term forecast for the budget is the equivalent of a horn sounding on a faraway train coming down the track: If you're on the track, you ignore the sound of that...