I need strategies for hitting back at those who are trying to discredit the CBO

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

The CBO has been a reliable institution now for many decades. It produces non-partisan, quality research and has done so since its inception. And now all of the sudden, it's been discredited by a group of people who don't dislike its findings and want to politicize anything that it doesn't like. So, rather than argue those findings on the merits, this same group of people attack the organization itself. When confronted about why they don't address the CBO's findings, their response is to name call and attack those who who dare ask the question.

The question now is how do we fight back against these people who are so brainwashed by Teabagger rhetoric and Republican talking points when they try and discredit this institution?

Honestly, I'm just incredibly baffled by this.

[Dappleganger]

1. People who choose to spew teabag rhetoric aren't interested in facts.

It really is a waste of time.

[elocs]

2. If the CBO supported the GOP point of view they be shouting it from the rooftops. n/t

[Common Sense Party]

8. And we would be denouncing it from said rooftops. n/t

[elocs]

11. Yes, that is true. The same thing applies to polls.

If we don't agree with a poll then it is either not valid or it's a Republican leaning pollster. However, if we do agree with the results of a poll we shout it from the rooftops regardless of the pollster.

But unlike pollsters the CBO is supposed to be nonpartisan and either it is all of the time or it is not.

[CTyankee]

3. I found it very interesting that during the health care reform debate, the pukes

were all screaming for the CBO to score the bill overall. They were certain it would prove costly. When the CBO did score it and said it SAVED $$$$ their tune changed overnight. It was breathtaking...

[pinto]

4. Suggest we refer them directly to CBO with their "concerns" -

http://www.cbo.gov/

http://www.cbo.gov/contacts/

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Phone Number E-mail
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Comments or questions about this Web site:
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[ChoppinBroccoli]

5. I Had A Right-Wing Mouth-Breather Tell Me The CBO Is Unreliable Because...........

..............a former member of the Clinton administration is in charge of it, and because their estimates turned out to be slightly wrong on a couple of things. There's no arguing with these people. You tell them that the CBO is trusted as the gold standard by BOTH parties, and they just simply choose to not believe you. Anyone who dares to contradict their twisted little view of the world is a partisan hack. Because, you know, they couldn't be............WRONG..........or anything.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

6. Great responses, guys! Thanks!!! n/t

[applegrove]

7. They have to destroy good sources of information in order to kill government.

[Igel]

9. It still would be.

It has its problems with things like budget projections because of the assumptions it has to make. That's the problem with any scoring, any projection--sorting out the assumptions. You've got to make some, some being more reasonable that others.

Take the budget projection made in 2000. Budget surpluses for as far as the eye could see. At the time that was dismissed as a crock. But they had to assume that the recent past would predict the future--even as the leading economic indicators said "recession" and we'd already had a record post-war period of growth. (Then again, the wise-crack is that leading indicators have predicted 12 out of the last 9 recessions.) In general, though, they could debate their own assumptions and often enough set them themselves. They worked for Congress; but they were largely independent of Congress.

That meant its scoring of bills used to be non-partisan. Bills would consist of laws and regulations and it was possible to look at the CBO's assumptions, look at the scoring, see how it reflected the bill, and think, "Yeah, not too bad." Or, conversely, "The assumptions suck" or even "Are we reading the same bill?"

The HCRA was billed as gaming the system because it stated the assumptions to be made and essentially set the guidelines the CBO had to follow. If it said it would save money the CBO was forced to agree with what the proposed legislation said. The CBO was scoring the bill, but wasn't authorized to pass judgment on the bill's assumptions. The CBO had to include everything the bill included, exclude everything the bill excluded. My favorite point was that healthcare reform would save so many billions of dollars through government administration of student loans. (A companion bill that actually redid the student loan system saved nothing.) It didn't matter if it would or not, or if the projection on the amount saved in administrating student loans was reasonable. It was what the CBO had to assume was true and that this would be a savings that resulted from the HCRA.

The CBO knew about this little problem and made mention of the fact that it was constrained to assume as plausible some things that they probably wouldn't have assumed given their druthers were they not obligated to do so by Congress. It's possible to disagree with that particular CBO scoring; the CBO wasn't all gung-ho about it. So I say the CBO used to be non-partisan although the most likely implicature is that I'm suggesting it's now partisan, I mean this in a quirky way. In the last few years the CBO has been firmly in Congress' pocket when it scores some bills, not when it scores others. It's not truly independent, it's just not dependent on a party (per se) or the executive branch.

[rucky]

10. Make them prove it.

The source material is public.

[spanone]

12. why try? you'll convince them of nothing. lies are their bedrock.

[Motown_Johnny]

13. Good Luck, all you can do is tell them that the CBO is the only source for

reliable information (for budget matters) and they will ignore you because they believe in things like flying spaghetti monsters.

This is just one more symptom of fantasy based policies winning out over fact based ones.

[Gormy Cuss]

14. The last time I had that sort of discussion, I asked which CBO reports he'd read

and where specifically one could find the erroneous analysis by CBO. Not surprisingly, he hadn't read anything written by the CBO. An eye roll was my final response.

There is no talking sense to those brainwashed by Tea Party nonsense, Glenn Beck, Rush, Hannity, and Fox News.