Republican Congress’s First Act Was to Declare War on Math

Late last year Paul Ryan Declared War Against Math. His plan, was to change the forecasting rules so that the tax cuts republicans made didn't have any penalty.

The House yesterday, had a rapid vote to have the Congressional Budget Office use a new method called "Dynamic Scoring".

The new, “dynamic” CBO will be systematically biased to make conservative proposals appear misleadingly cheap and liberal proposals misleadingly costly to the public fisc. This would be true even if the Republicans were soliciting a fair range of forecasting perspectives. By its design, the dynamic scoring rule allows the party in power to game its effects. It applies “dynamic scoring” only to legislation affecting 0.25 percent of Gross Domestic Product. As Chye-Ching Huang and Paul Van de Water point out, congressional leaders can manipulate this requirement easily: They can break up large pieces of legislation into smaller bills to avoid dynamic scoring, or combine smaller pieces into a major bill, if needed to make their agenda appear more affordable. Dynamic scoring is subject to abuse by its very design. Source

The change on “dynamic scoring” — ardently sought since the 1990s by Republicans — could ease passage of major tax cuts by showing that their impact on economic growth would substantially reduce their cost to the Treasury. The move is widely seen as a way for Republican leaders to set ground rules for an ambitious overhaul of the entire United States tax code.

Speaker John A. Boehner and Representative Nancy Pelosi not long after he beat back an embarrassing challenge to retain his post on Tuesday.Boehner Fends Off Dissent as G.O.P. Takes the ReinsJAN. 6, 2015
“We’re saying, ‘If you think a piece of legislation is going to have a big effect on the economy, then include that effect in the official cost estimate,’ ” said Representative Tom Price, Republican of Georgia, the new chairman of the House Budget Committee. “So if you think a bill is going to help or hurt the economy, then tell us how much.” Source

Overview of The Need for Macoeconomic Analysis by Tom Price.

Yesterday, Shaun Donovan wrote up "Dynamic Scoring" is Not the answer over at WhiteHouse.gov

The House will vote today on a resolution requiring the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to adopt a practice known as “dynamic scoring,” which would change how the Congress calculates the expected cost of a piece of legislation. Current rules require calculating a policy’s direct cost to the government, which includes looking at how affected individuals and firms would react to the policy. But dynamic scoring goes further by requiring that budget estimates also take into account how policies could affect the total size of the economy. While this may seem like another example of Washington “inside baseball” with little impact on the American public, using dynamic scoring for official cost estimates would risk injecting bias into a broadly accepted, non-partisan scoring process that has existed for decades. As a result, it could allow Congress to adopt legislation that increases Federal deficits, while masking its costs.

The bottoom line that this is a way to fast track tax cuts for millionaires and make it look like there are no large costs associated with the maneuver. It's going to be interesting to see where the heads when the new CBO Director is appointed.

What do you think of this "macroeconomic scoring" method proposed by the Republican majority congress?

But of course you know that the biggest problem that our country faces are those entitlements!!
All I can say is don't talk to me about cutting the entitlements until they make an honest effort to cut their spending and get the budget a little more balanced!
oh wait a minute
do they even have a budget yet???

if I remember right they managed to make the wars look like they weren't costing us that much either.
then once a dem got into office it's "oh my God!! look at how much we owe!"

a reply to: theNLBS

I used to hear the axiom, vote republican because, although they all steal, it's about 5x less than the amount the dems give away.

That's a real American chestnut there. Everything about American politics sucks you back into the false dichotomy. Apparently, there is no escape.

I refuse to play anymore.

a reply to: dawnstar

Heh...not quite on the cost-of-war comment, and don't even get me started on talking about how much the national debt has increased since a Democrat has been in power for 6 years.

But regardless, both parties play this game, so it's really amusing to see you or the OP pretend it only is done by and benefits Republicans.

Both parties are equally secretive about how much they spend because they both spend way too much, and on things that we don't need, to include all of this war.

And for the record, you don't only need to discuss and aggressively fix one spending problem at a time, especially because entitlement spending is THE major part of the budget every year. But I say we start by cutting (not just reducing the amount of budget growth each year) everything across the board by 1%. It's a doable way to get started that will not affect one thing more than any other, and hopefully we all agree that if a system or agency can't work with 1% less of its budget, it should probably be abolished and recreated from scratch (or not at all).

But they have been twisting the numbers for decades, why do they need a new way of twisting the numbers. I wasn't aware that the old way didn't work with such huge national debt numbers. The present deceit system is good enough. They do not need to create a new system.

a reply to: theNLBS

It figures. The 'first' Republican move is attacked by the left. (Perhaps valid).

Where was the OP when Obama and Co. forced this counter move? When they played their games with the rules?

If I had seen similar OPs then from the author, I might give more credence to this thread. All this one invokes is what's good for the goose is good for the gander.....

originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: theNLBS

It figures. The 'first' Republican move is attacked by the left. (Perhaps valid).

Do you have any idea how many people are tired of this "martyr syndrome"? That's the right's mantra right now. "We're attacked by everybody." Not only hypocritical, as the right's OTHER major ploy IS attack, it's whiny and non-moving.

a reply to: theNLBS

The ruling elite need to take a good hard look at the working class and ask themselves what happens when they can no longer afford food and housing. The cost of living is rising much faster than wages. The lower wage earners are about to be rendered out of this economic model due to inflationary boundaries.

a reply to: theNLBS

So wait, the Republicans are wanting to lie to the American public about how much something is going to cost or much benefit we may gain for it? And this is making headlines with such titles as 'declare war on math' ??

Hello anyone - ObamaCare - did no one learn anything the past 6 years? OF COURSE they are lying, people.

How can anyone justify a tax cut when we already don`t collect enough taxes to pay our bills?

or maybe that`s exactly how they justify it, since the government can`t pay it`s bills anyways why not let the people keep more of their money instead of throwing into a bottomless pit of government debt which will never be paid off.
The little bit of money that people will get to keep from a tax cut would just be a drop in the ocean of government debt.
It`s like using a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon to bail water out of a sinking ship,either way the ship is going to sink and using a bigger spoon isn`t going to keep it afloat longer.

for anyone interested, here the legislation.

the pertinent parts are inside.

H.Res. 5

a reply to: Tardacus


Truth be told they could just keep printing money to pay the bills........OH wait that is exactly what they have been doing.

Whatever brings our society closer to a quick collapse is fine by me.

Keep on voting!

The less citizens that can add, the fewer they have to worry about adding it all up.

Keeping us dumb since 1913!

a reply to: SlapMonkey

well I don't believe you on the cost of war bit
I kind of think that we still don't really know how much the bush admin rung up on that
kind of think that some of the things that happened prior to the housing collapse were done to help secretly fund it ( check out video from "V the economist" and I beiieve it's jim willie) and if I am right then we still don't know the true cost is

as far as them both playing a nasty game I know they are but my comment regarding the entitlements was made bacause one of the republicans kind of said the deficit wasn't important or was cutting the budget reallly
but then went on about how the entitlements needed to be reigned in

and social security is the biggest chunk among those programs and that would have had plenty of money in it if hadn't been raiding it all along to pay for the tax cuts and perks for big business, wars, silly spending like bridges to nowhere or airports that weren't needed!

because one side believes money should be used for this set of items and the other set over there should be the only ones cut and the other side believes just the opposite nothing seems to be done except for a ton of useless spending.
and well your solution of cutting everything by a small amount would at least do something!!
but then I bet that they would still be trying to exempt this or that from the cuts.

originally posted by: xuenchen
for anyone interested, here the legislation.

the pertinent parts are inside.

H.Res. 5

No one is interested in legislative text.

Its better to use halfwit hyperbole.

a reply to: intrepid

Judging by the election, a whole lot more are put out by the left.

The martyr syndrome? That's funny. From how I see it, that's the left's number one mechanism. All the poor, oppressed, women, undocumented immigrants, African-Americans, on and on and on.

Coming from a Canadian, who cares what you think about U.S. politics. At least, there's a bit more honesty from the right...

a reply to: theNLBS

Considering Obama's 'PayGo' law was a partisan farce that considered extension of then existing lower than current tax rates as "increases to the deficit," I really think this is an example of whining over the GOP actions while ignoring the fact that the GOP really isn't doing anything different than both parties have always done. Obama's PayGo exempts discretionary spending and entitlement spending from being considered in the deficit while considering any tax rate reduction as being a deficit builder. It's true NLBS. What other name could you possibly give to a "budget balancing" mechanism under which the federal debt has gained $7.5 Trillion, doubling over the last 6 years?

So I guess what I'm saying is your baseline presumption that the system was nonpartisan before this GOP stunt is wrong and your assumption that the baseline was based on anything realistically math-related is also wrong. The GOP simply poured another bucket of crap into the cess pool.

a reply to: theNLBS

With the $19 trillion dollar national debt, and the consistently robust economy, and the healthy trade deficit... I mean why would they consider changing anything?

Don't fix it if it's not broken, right?

originally posted by: dawnstar
a reply to: SlapMonkey
well I don't believe you on the cost of war bit

I kind of think that we still don't really know how much the bush admin rung up on that

kind of think that some of the things that happened prior to the housing collapse were done to help secretly fund it ( check out video from "V the economist" and I beiieve it's jim willie) and if I am right then we still don't know the true cost is

I don't disagree that we probably will never know the true cost--or, at least, the cost over normally would have been spent on a standing military not at war--because our government is about as adapt at keeping good financial records as a worm is at chasing down a gazelle.

But, keep in mind that the housing collapse started way before Bush was in office--Bush didn't cause the collapse, but I do agree that he didn't exactly fix the problem, either.

as far as them both playing a nasty game I know they are but my comment regarding the entitlements was made bacause one of the republicans kind of said the deficit wasn't important or was cutting the budget reallly
but then went on about how the entitlements needed to be reigned in

Well, he would be wrong that the deficit isn't important, but that's different than the debt. Of course, if we quite running our country at a deficit each year, that would dramatically reduce the rate of debt growth. But in order to do that, entitlements do need cut, and it's the one place in government where I think the most dramatic cuts could be made. Regardless of the reality that there are people who need government help, there are a lot who really do not, but are getting and abusing it anyway. Those are the people who need to be cut off...immediately.

and social security is the biggest chunk among those programs and that would have had plenty of money in it if hadn't been raiding it all along to pay for the tax cuts and perks for big business, wars, silly spending like bridges to nowhere or airports that weren't needed!

Simple solution--peter out the social security program altogether. The SS system was set up at a time when the age that you could start receiving what you put into it was basically the same as the average life span--it was only meant to help individuals during their last few years be able to live without working themselves into the grave. The age of elegibility in the program has not kept up with the average lifespan increase due to better health care and better knowledge of how to live a healthy life (plus better safety all around, too). But the problem overall with the SS system is that it's antiquated and unnecessary--there are too many ways to easily save privately for one's retirement, and the SS system was never meant as a retirement account, but it gets treated that way now. My two non-social-security cents, anyhow.

because one side believes money should be used for this set of items and the other set over there should be the only ones cut and the other side believes just the opposite nothing seems to be done except for a ton of useless spending.

and well your solution of cutting everything by a small amount would at least do something!!

but then I bet that they would still be trying to exempt this or that from the cuts.

Yep...can't argue with that logic, there. That's why if it were just across the board, no one could exempt anything. But then again, that's why it's just a hope and a dream--it'll never happen because it actually makes sense.

Take care...good chat, thanks.