ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Republican lawmakers and President Trump have been publicly complaining a lot about the Congressional Budget Office. It's a typically mundane, nonpartisan economic forecasting office. They are accusing it of playing politics with Trump's massive legislative effort known as the Big, Beautiful Bill, so NPR's Barbara Sprunt is here to explain what the CBO actually does.
BARBARA SPRUNT, BYLINE: We've been hearing a lot about the CBO from congressional Republicans.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
MIKE JOHNSON: We're not buying the CBO's estimates.
TIM SCOTT: The CBO has been wrong on tax cuts.
STEVE SCALISE: To see how wrong the CBO has been...
RAND PAUL: There's a lot not to like about the Congressional Budget Office.
SPRUNT: That's House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senator Tim Scott, Congressman Steve Scalise and Senator Rand Paul - just some of many Republicans venting frustration about the CBO's latest projection that signature GOP legislation meant to implement big swaths of President Trump's agenda, like extending the 2017 tax cuts, would increase federal deficits by about 2.4 trillion over a decade.
JESSICA RIEDL: What's happening right now is that Republicans are somewhat embarrassed that their tax cuts are being scored as costing trillions over the decade.
SPRUNT: That's Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute.
RIEDL: After all, this is the party of self-styled deficit hawks. They're seeing this as a messaging problem where they can attack the scorekeepers.
SPRUNT: But what exactly do budget scorekeepers do? Well, think of it like balancing your own household budget, but on steroids.
DOUG HOLTZ-EAKIN: You go to the store and they tell you what the prices are. CBO's telling them what the prices are.
SPRUNT: That's Doug Holtz-Eakin. He was director of CBO from 2003 to 2005.
HOLTZ-EAKIN: And then Congress is saying, OK, if those are the prices, what does this add up to? What's the food? What's the gasoline? How much is the rent going to be? Did we make our budget or not?
SPRUNT: And just like you can make choices regardless of what the calculator says, so can Congress. The CBO doesn't make any policy recommendations. It's up to lawmakers to decide what to do with the information they get. The CBO was established in the 1970s. Up until then, budget scorekeeping was done under the executive branch. The creation of the CBO meant Congress didn't have to depend on the White House - partisan by nature - to determine how much legislation would cost. Here's Riedl.
RIEDL: Congress doesn't have a lot of neutral nonpartisan staffers that stick around regardless of the party in power, but CBO is one of those few offices.
SPRUNT: It's a relatively small shop, with less than 300 employees who typically produce a thousand bill cost estimates a year.
RIEDL: Their projections certainly are not perfect, but projecting how new tax changes will affect the economic decisions of 330 million Americans is extraordinarily complicated.
SPRUNT: And because there isn't an actual crystal ball out there, Holtz-Eakin says unforeseen events can upend original projections.
HOLTZ-EAKIN: Forecasting the future is really, really hard. Things happen. Like, you have COVID, and the budget deficit goes from something sort of normal to $3 trillion in the space of three months. So, you know, yes, they're going to have some forecasting errors.
SPRUNT: He says a common misconception is that there's a model for everything out there and analysts just plug and chug.
HOLTZ-EAKIN: Like, you know, you just drop the bill into a slot and out comes the answer, and the problem is the CBO has the wrong model. They went to the wrong model shop and bought the wrong model. That's not at all what we're doing.
SPRUNT: He says while there are reasonable criticisms on the timeliness of some of the CBO estimates over the years, concerns about partisanship are misplaced, and that the CBO works hard to maintain objectivity. But he says CBO staffers know that criticism comes with the territory.
HOLTZ-EAKIN: You work there, you understand this. OK, here we go. We're going to have this one Big, Beautiful Bill on the agenda, we're going to get yelled at, and that's - let's just get through it.
SPRUNT: But eventually, lawmakers will get a score they're happy with and then heap praise on the CBO, right?
HOLTZ-EAKIN: When they're really happy, they say, we did a great job. When they're really unhappy, they say, CBO screwed this up (laughter). That's how that works.
SPRUNT: Such is Washington.
Barbara Sprunt, NPR News, the Capitol.
(SOUNDBITE OF DELICATE STEVE'S "PEACHES") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
