Artificial Stupidity: How the Democrats Deceived the CBO to Get Their "Reduces the Deficit" Claim

Ace of Spades HQ has provided this important and timely post...

The CBO has very strict rules about how they "score" a bill. Most importantly, they have to score a bill -- or "conceptual language" in a non-bill, as we have here -- according to what is written therein, even if it's jackass.

In other words, if a bill claims that certain things are going to happen that the CBO knows with 95% confidence will never happen -- like Medicare payments being cut -- the CBO still has to pretend those cuts will happen, even though they know, as we all know, they almost certainly won't.

Their scoring methodology resembles a computer's "thinking" -- a computer doesn't think. It follows the rules it's been programmed to follow, no matter how stupid those rules might be. It has no common sense or judgment. The analysts at the CBO might have common sense and judgment, but they're stripped of that -- prevented from using that -- by the "code" of the program they follow, hard-wired into the system by law.

That means that it's not very hard to trick the CBO's "programming," just as it's no difficult feat to crash a computer. Garbage in, garbage out. And the Baucus bill is specifically designed to produce garbage, to get a "salable number" for the deficit.

And that number, while salable, is 100% false, by design.

Among the tricks used to generate that false number:

1. Increased revenues through increased taxes begin in 2010, but new payments and outflows begin in 2013. Meaning the ten-year window the CBO is required to score contains ten years of higher taxes and higher revenues, but only seven years of higher expenses. This is obviously an apples-to-oranges comparison -- and if the CBO looked at 2013 through 2023, with ten years of higher revenue matched against ten years of higher expenses, they'd find a growing deficit, not a faked-up "deficit reduction" of $81 billion.

But the Baucus bill deliberately takes advantage of the artificial stupidity of the CBO's code to compare seven years of spending to ten years of taxes to get a "deficit reduction."

Sure it's jackass to do that. But that's the way the CBO is supposed to do it -- even if it makes no sense -- and the Baucus bill "conceptual language" deliberately exploits that in order to deceive the public.

2. A large amount of the expense for federal health care spending is simply pushed off to the states, taking it off the fed's books -- supposedly. But the states are all operating at deficits now -- they only reason they're not bankrupt is that the federal government periodically votes them huge grants (supposedly as "stimulus") to help close the gap between revenue and spending.

If this health care bill passes, the states will be in even worse shape fiscally. They will avoid bankruptcy through two means: They will raise taxes -- many of these hitting those who make under $200,000 per year (sales taxes, cigarette taxes, other sin taxes) and thus breaking Obama's pledge of no new taxes for such people. He's just mandating that the states do his dirty work for him.

And they will seek, and receive, more aid from the federal government, this aid granted to pay down the huge new unfunded mandates the government has imposed on them.

The CBO's rules are deliberately subverted here -- because technically, the states are supposed to come up with this revenue themselves. In reality -- which the CBO isn't allowed to consider -- the federal government will simply grant them more aid.

(More...)

And, here's a Team Sarah Update

The Chairman’s Mark-Up version of the Baucus Bill is our focus!

Chairman’s Mark of the America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 HERE:
http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202009/091609%20Americas_Healthy_Future_Act.pdf

If you’re a reader for the Team Sarah Health Care Bill Review Board (TSHCBRB) and you have not completed your assignment, NOW is the time. THIS IS NO LONGER A DRY RUN. We are treating the mark-up version as the bill! We have 8 Collator Groups ready so that you can place your “Review” in the proper place.
http://www.teamsarah.org/group/healthcarebillreviewboard

The following came across the AP this morning:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091013/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul
“Once the Finance Committee has acted, the dealmaking can begin in earnest with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., working with White House staff, Baucus and others to blend the Finance bill with a more liberal version passed by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

A major question mark is whether Reid will include some version of a so-called public plan in the merged bill. Across the Capitol, House Democratic leaders are working to finalize their bill, which does contain a public plan, and floor action is expected in both chambers in coming weeks. If passed, the legislation would then go to a conference committee to reconcile differences.”

For members, please get to the phones today to call your own senators!

Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121
Senate Finance Committee: (202) 224-4515
Master Senator Phone List: http://senate.gov/general/resources/pdf/senators_phone_list.pdf

Best,
The Tiny Team behind the Team
teamsarahhq@gmail.com