In a January 19th article title “The White House Looks for Work” The New York Times Peter Baker reports:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known as the stimulus, produced or saved at least 1.9 million jobs and as many as 4.7 million last year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Someone reading this sentence might conclude that the CBO has analyzed actual real world data taken before, during, and after the stimulus and concluded that it saved jobs. This is completely false. The CBO job estimate numbers are based off of a computer model that does not incorporate any … Continue Reading

Politico’s Darren Samuelsohn transcribed a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office on the Democrats latest cap and trade energy tax bill for Politico July 7th:

The CBO analysis of the American Power Act, championed by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) found that government revenues would grow by about $751 billion from 2011 to 2020 if the bill became law. By contrast, the legislation would create direct spending of $732 billion over the same 10-year period.

This is all true, but Samuelsohn ignores some elementary criticism of how the CBO is forced to score legislation by Congress. The … Continue Reading

Senate Democrats want both a $200 billion deficit spending jobs bill, but they also want to appear as though they care about the growing national debt. Covering this dilemma for The New York Times, David Leonhardt wrote on June 1st:

Of course, even if the bill is not very expensive, it is worth passing only if it will make a difference. And economists say it will.

Last year’s big stimulus program certainly did. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 1.4 million to 3.4 million people now working would be unemployed were it not for the stimulus.

But the CBO estimates are not … Continue Reading

Ron Brownstein writes in the May 8th National Journal:

Republicans who say that President Obama’s stimulus plan hasn’t created any jobs must ignore not only the Congressional Budget Office (whose latest estimate put the total as high as 2.1 million) but also the more immediate examples of Marco Rubio and Pat Toomey.

The stimulus may very well end up helping Toomey and Rubio become Senators, but Brownstein fails to report just how easy the CBO’s stimulus job numbers are easy to ignore. As The Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl reported on March 26th:

CBO director Doug Elmendorf has finally conceded that they

… Continue Reading

Reporting for Time, Bryan Walsh writes under the header What the Energy Bill Really Means for CO2 Emissions:

But critics have vastly overstated the likely cost. In fact, they’re all but lying. During the House debate, Republican whip Eric Cantor, using numbers from an American Petroleum Institute study, said that the bill would eventually cost more than $3,000 per family per year … A more reliable study from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecast that the bill would cost the average U.S. household $175 in higher energy costs annually by 2020…

“All but lying” is a pretty strong statement that demands … Continue Reading