Time to Shut Down the Congressional Budget Office?

One of the many disappointing things about Republicans is that they fail to correct problems when they get power. After the 1994 "Gingrich Revolution," the GOP had complete control of Capitol Hill. This meant complete authority over the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation. Did Republicans use this power to fire the old staff and put in people who understood economics? Of course not. I don't know if this is because Republicans are stupid or if it's because they're too timid to take steps that would generate complaints from their enemies. Regardless, what really matters is that CBO and JCT are just as biased today as they were 20 years ago. Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Hudson Institute exposes CBO's latest shoddy Keynesian analysis. She is correct, and the people making these same arguments 20 years ago were correct. And I'm afraid people will be saying the same things 20 years from now. Which leads me to think that maybe the best approach is to get rid of these bureaucracies.

...on Tuesday the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued a report showing that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 and 3.3 million people in the second quarter of 2010 and lowered unemployment by 0.7 to 1.8 percentage points. CBO concludes that without the Recovery Act unemployment, which stood at 9.5% in July, might exceed 10% and possibly be above 11%. There's just one problem. CBO's latest figures are inconsistent with its claims of the effects of the stimulus bill when it was passed in February 2009. If its models failed to accurately predict the effects of the stimulus bill then, why should we believe the models now? This is important because some are taking the CBO report as proof that the stimulus bill is working and so we need...more stimulus. ...After passage of the stimulus bill, in a March 2009 letter to Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, CBO predicted that the unemployment rate in the last quarter of 2009 would rise to 9% without the stimulus package, from its then-current level of 8.2%. With the stimulus, CBO said, the unemployment rate would range from 7.8% to 8.5%. The actual rate in December, 11 months after enactment of the stimulus, was 10%, far higher than CBO said it would be absent the stimulus. ...If Americans had known in February of 2009 that the $787 billion stimulus package (whose cost CBO later raised to $862 billion) would not lead to declines in unemployment, but instead a substantial increase in the unemployment rate to 9.5%, opposition to the spending would have been practically universal. Put it another way - if Americans were asked now whether they would prefer today to have back the February 2009 unemployment rate of 8.2% and the $862 billion spent on stimulus, they would say yes. Some say things would have been worse if the stimulus funds had not been spent. They assume that more government spending, including the $862 billion stimulus, must be good for the economy. This form of Keynesian economics fell out of fashion decades ago everywhere, except in the halls of power in Washington. If more government spending always helped the economy, why stop at $862 billion? Why not give each American an unlimited bank account? Then the unemployment rate would likely rise to 100%. But some economists would still offer unverifiable models to "prove" the benefit to the American public.

Congressional Budget Office Says We Can Maximize Long-Run Economic Output with 100 Percent Tax Rates

I hope the title of this post is an exaggeration, but it's certainly a logical conclusion based on what is written in the Congressional Budget Office's updated Economic and Budget Outlook. The Capitol Hill bureaucracy basically has a deficit-über-alles view of fiscal policy. CBO's long-run perspective, as shown by this excerpt, is that deficits reduce output by "crowding out" private capital and that anything that results in lower deficits (or larger surpluses) will improve economic performance - even if this means big increases in tax rates.

CBO has also examined an alternative fiscal scenario reflecting several changes to current law that are widely expected to occur or that would modify some provisions of law that might be difficult to sustain for a long period. That alternative scenario embodies small differences in outlays relative to those projected under current law but significant differences in revenues: Under that scenario, most of the cuts in individual income taxes enacted in 2001 and 2003 and now scheduled to expire at the end of this year (except the lower rates applying to high-income taxpayers) are extended through 2020; relief from the AMT, which expired after 2009, continues through 2020; and the 2009 estate tax rates and exemption amounts (adjusted for inflation) apply through 2020. ...Under those alternative assumptions, real GDP would be...lower in subsequent years than under CBO’s baseline forecast. ...Under that alternative fiscal scenario, real GDP would fall below the level in CBO’s baseline projections later in the coming decade because the larger budget deficits would reduce or “crowd out” investment in productive capital and result in a smaller capital stock.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with CBO's concern about deficits, but looking at fiscal policy through that prism is akin to deciding who wins a baseball game by looking at what happened during the 6th inning. Yes, government borrowing drains capital from the productive sector of the economy. And nations such as Greece are painful examples of what happens when governments go too far down this path. But taxes also undermine economic performance by reducing incentives to work, save, and invest. And nations such as France are gloomy reminders of what happens when punitive tax rates discourage productive behavior.

What's missing for CBO's analysis is any recognition or understanding that the real problem is excessive government spending. Regardless of whether spending is financed by borrowing or taxes, resources are being diverted from the private sector to government. In other words, government spending is the disease and deficits are basically a symptom of that underlying problem. Indeed, it's worth noting that there's not much evidence that deficits cause economic damage but plenty of evidence that bloated public sectors stunt growth. This video is a good antidote to CBO's myopic focus on budget deficits.

With Tax Increases Looming, CBO Does About-Face and Frets about Deficits and Debt

Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, the Congressional Budget Office follows a predictable pattern of endorsing policies that result in bigger government. During the debate about the so-called stimulus, for instance, CBO said more spending and higher deficits would be good for the economy. It then followed up that analysis by claiming that the faux stimulus worked even though millions of jobs were lost. Then, during the Obamacare debate, CBO actually claimed that a giant new entitlement program would reduce deficits. Now that tax increases are the main topic (because of the looming expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax bills), CBO has done a 180-degree turn and has published a document discussing the negative consequences of too much deficits and debt.

...persistent deficits and continually mounting debt would have several negative economic consequences for the United States. Some of those consequences would arise gradually: A growing portion of people’s savings would go to purchase government debt rather than toward investments in productive capital goods such as factories and computers; that “crowding out” of investment would lead to lower output and incomes than would otherwise occur. ...a growing level of federal debt would also increase the probability of a sudden fiscal crisis, during which investors would lose confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget, and the government would thereby lose its ability to borrow at affordable rates. ...If the United States encountered a fiscal crisis, the abrupt rise in interest rates would reflect investors’ fears that the government would renege on the terms of its existing debt or that it would increase the supply of money to finance its activities or pay creditors and thereby boost inflation.

At some point, even Republicans should be smart enough to figure out that this game is rigged. Then again, the GOP controlled Congress for a dozen years and failed to reform either CBO or its counterpart on the revenue side, the Joint Committee on Taxation (which is infamous for its assumption that tax policy has no impact on overall economic performance).

More Garbage-In-Garbage-Out from CBO

You don't need to watch old Gunsmoke episodes if you want to travel into the past. Just read the latest Congressional Budget Office "research" claiming that Obama's so-called stimulus "increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 1.8 million to 4.1 million." CBO's analysis is a throwback to the widely discredited Keynesian theory that assumes you can enrich yourself by switching money from your left pocket to right pocket. For all intents and purposes, CBO wants us to believe their Keynesian model and ignore real world data. This is akin to the famous line attributed to Willie Nelson, who was caught with another woman by his wife and supposedly said, "Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?"

Using its own Keynesian model, the White House last year said that wasting $800 billion was necessary to keep the unemployment rate from rising above 8 percent. Yet the joblessness rate quickly jumped to 10 percent and remains stubbornly high. We've already beaten this dead horse (here, here, here, here, and here) in part because the White House has embarrassed itself even further with silly attempts to find some way of turning a sow's ear into a silk purse. This is why Obama Administration estimates have evolved from "jobs created" to "jobs saved" to "jobs financed."

The CBO's most recent "calculations" are just another version of the same economic alchemy. But don't believe me. Buried at the end of the report is this passage, where CBO basically admits that its new "research" simply plugged new spending numbers into its Keynesian formula. This sounds absurd, and it is, but don't forget that these are the same geniuses that predicted that a giant new healthcare entitlement would reduce long-run budget deficits.

CBO’s current estimates of the impact of ARRA on output and employment differ slightly from those presented in its February 2010 report primarily because the agency has revised its estimates of ARRA’s impact on federal spending on the basis of new information. Outlays resulting from ARRA in the first quarter of calendar year 2010 were higher than the amount that CBO projected in February 2010 in preparing its estimate of the law’s likely impact on output and employment, primarily because a larger-than-expected amount of refundable tax credits was disbursed in the first quarter rather than later in the year. That change makes the estimated impact of ARRA on output and employment in the first quarter slightly higher than what CBO projected in February.

What If We Could Cheat the Government, Sort of Like the Government Cheats Us?

I have a column in the Washington Times speculating on ways we could lower our tax bills if we could use the same creative accounting that the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation used to help impose Obamacare on the nation:

If you're still struggling over your tax return, wondering why you pay so much to finance a dysfunctional and wasteful government, maybe it's time you adopted the same rules used by government number crunchers. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) helped push the health bill across the finish line by forecasting that (don't laugh) a giant new entitlement program for government-run health care would reduce long-run budget deficits. A closer look at what they did suggests that as we approach April 15, taxpayers could save a bundle of money if they used the same creative accounting as CBO and JCT. For example: When CBO and JCT concoct their official scores about increases or decreases in government spending or revenue, they use "base-line" math. So when CBO said Medicare spending would be cut by several hundred billion dollars over the next 10 years, the first thing you need to understand is that Medicare spending actually will be increasing during that time period from $528 billion this year to about $1 trillion in 2020. But CBO says Medicare spending will be "cut" because it is not increasing even faster. Imagine if you got to do the same thing with your tax return. Not many of us received raises last year because of an economy weakened by bad government policy. But let's say you were one of the lucky ones (a government employee, perhaps?) and you got a $5,000 raise. Unfortunately, Uncle Sam is going to want a big chunk of that additional money. Here's where CBO accounting would be a big help. Why don't you assume that you were going to get a raise of $10,000. Because your pay "only" went up by $5,000, you can claim your pay was reduced. The IRS will come down on you like a ton of bricks, but you can tell the agents as they cart you away that you were following official government methodology. (Maybe they'll go easy on you when you tell them that an identical approach helped push the IRS budget up to $12 billion.)

My Big Fat Greek Budget

Since we're already depressed by the enactment of Obamacare, we may as well wallow in misery by looking at some long-term budget numbers. The chart below, which is based on the Congressional Budget Office's long-run estimates, shows that federal government spending will climb to 45 percent of GDP if we believe CBO's more optimistic "baseline" estimate. If we prefer the less optimistic "alternative" estimate, the burden of federal government spending will climb to 67 percent of economic output. These dismal numbers are driven by two factors, an aging population and entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. For all intents and purposes, America is on a path to become a European-style welfare state.

If these numbers don't depress you enough, here are a couple of additional observations to push you over the edge. These CBO estimates were produced last year, so they don't count the cost of Obamacare. And as Michael Cannon repeatedly has observed, Obamacare will cost much more than the official estimates concocted by CBO. And speaking of estimates, the long-run numbers in the chart are almost certainly too optimistic since CBO's methodology naively assumes that a rising burden of government will have no negative impact on the economy's growth rate. Last but not least, the data above only measures federal spending. State and local government budgets will consume at least another 15 percent of GDP, so even using the optimistic baseline, total government spending will be about 60 percent of GDP, higher than every European nation, including France, Greece, and Sweden. And if we add state and local spending on top of the "alternative" baseline, then we're in uncharted territory where perhaps Cuba and North Korea would be the most appropriate analogies.

So what do we do? There's no sure-fire solution. Congressman Paul Ryan has a reform plan to reduce long-run federal spending to less than 20 percent of GDP. This "Roadmap" plan is excellent, though it is marred by the inclusion of a value-added tax. Bill Shipman of CarriageOaks Partners put forth a very interesting proposal in a Washington Times column to make the federal government rely on states for tax revenue. And I've been an avid proponent of tax competition as a strategy to curtail the greed of the political class since it is difficult to finance redistribution if labor and capital can escape to jurisdictions with better tax law. Any other suggestions?

Lies, Damned Lies, and CBO Estimates

Washington is buzzing with news that the Congressional Budget Office has a new cost estimate for the President's proposal to further expand the federal government's control over the healthcare system. The White House is doubtlessly pleased because the takeaway message, as blindly regurgitated by the Associated Press, is that a giant new entitlement program is going to "drive down red ink":

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the legislation would reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion over its first 10 years, and continue to drive down the red ink thereafter. Democratic leaders said the deficit would be cut $1.2 trillion in the second decade - and Obama called it the biggest reduction since the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton put the federal budget on a path to surplus.

My Cato Institute colleague Michael Cannon already has explained that the cost estimate is fraudulent because of what it leaves out, so let me explain why it is fraudulent because of what it includes. The CBO has a very dismal track record of getting the numbers wrong (see first video below), in part because there is no attempt to measure how a bigger burden of government has negative macroeconomic effects, but also because the number crunchers do a poor job of measuring the degree to which people (recipients, healthcare providers, state and local politicians, etc) will modify their behavior to become eligible for other people's money. The problem is compounded by similar mistakes for revenue estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation, which (like CBO) makes no attempt to capture macroeconomic effects and has a less-than-stellar history of predicting behavioral responses (see second video below).

If the legislation passes, we will get more spending, more taxes, and more debt. Equally troubling, we will get more dependency. That's good for Washington and bad for the country.