CBO Score Numbers Juggling Continues
Numbers juggling is the art and sport of keeping as many objects aloft as possible. 8 or more balls or rings, or 6 or more clubs is generally considered the threshold for numbers. Traditionally, the goal has been to “qualify” a number, that is, to get the pattern around twice such that each object hads [sic] been thrown and caught twice.
The Democrats haven’t yet made it to the threshold with their CBO numbers. They’re hoping no one notices everything they’ve dropped on the floor.
This afternoon Philip Klein writes that the Dems Still Don’t Have the CBO Score They Want. They have yet to release their reconciliation bill and its CBO score. Klein quotes from the Congressional Quarterly:
House leaders were to huddle late Tuesday afternoon, following a noon session of the full Democratic Caucus. There were reports they are having trouble drafting a bill that meets their budgetary targets….
Rank-and-file Democrats did not talk about the details, but said that the CBO scores had come up short. “They were less than expected” in terms of deficit reduction, said Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, who plans to vote for the bill.
Klein points out some hurdles for the Democrats:
The most important is that, based on reconciliation instructions, the “fix” bill must be shown to reduce the deficit by at least $1 billion. The challenge is, that’s after assuming that the Senate bill is law. In other words, the reconciliation bill can’t claim any of the deficit reduction from the Senate bill, but rather it must reduce the deficit relative to the Senate bill. Yet the changes that are being talked about will cost a lot of money.
Good luck with that.
Another issue to keep in mind is President Obama’s pledge that the health care bill would cost “around $900 billion”
I have a feeling Obama never did well in math. He’s already over by $50 billion.
Also, Democrats need a CBO score that’s positive enough to help give Blue Dogs who claim to be fiscal conservatives an excuse to vote for the bill.
Don’t think their constituents won’t be watching.
So this is why it’s Tuesday afternoon and we still haven’t seen a final bill or CBO score.
Klein writes they have to release it by tomorrow if they intend to post online for 72 hours and make a Saturday evening vote. I wonder if this has any bearing on this news from Hot Air, Oh my: Dems ask Obama to delay trip for O-Care again.
At The Corner Daniel Foster wryly comments:
It is almost as if the reconciliation process were ill-suited for something like Obamacare.
UPDATE: AllahPundit asks:
Since they’re willing to delay the start of O-Care by several years to create a completely phony impression of how much it’ll cost, why not delay it by an extra year or two? Then it’ll cost even “less”!
__________
H/T: Wikipedia, The American Spectator, Hot Air, The Corner.
[1]
I was just reading the American Spectator article that implies the CBO scoring is “coming up ahort” on the estimates of deficit reduction the dems want. I guess you have to give them more time to manipulate those numbers!
What a game these dems are playing!
[2]
They have to go through and pick and choose what they have to do to lower the numbers.
Among other things they’ve made a travesty of CBO scoring. Now it’s basically just tweak the numbers until you have something that sounds good even if it will never play out that way in real life.
[3]
I found one uglier than helen thomas.
Note last para, you know he will change his mind
to wit:
Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the court, defined the procedure in the line-item case as having three steps: approval of a bill by one house, approval of the “exact text” by the other house, and a presidential signature. “The constitution explicitly requires that each of those three steps be taken before a bill may ‘become a law,’” he wrote.
.
[4]
Well there is a procedural issue for the Dims as well. The Senate could refuse to take it up if the recon measure does not reduce the deficit. Remember the GOP said that would enforce the Byrd provisions for that process. Lowered costs is one of the requirements for it to move forward.
[5]
They could “deem” it passed, and send it direct to obumbler for his scrawl.
[6]
Hot Air has a bit more from the Congressional Quarterly on the problems the Dems have trying to show reconciliation will reduce the deficit by $1B:
[7]
Well if SCOTUS agrees that Marshall (1893) still applies then yeah, 5 might end up true.
[8]
They can’t get around the fact that the “fix” bill must be shown to reduce the deficit by at least $1 billion.
[9]
I just listened to our Dear Leader promise a “THREE THOUSAND PERCENT drop” in Premiums employers would have to pay…and that I’m gonna get a raise!
Add THAT to Obama filling up my gas tank and paying my mortgage and hey, this guy is really something!!!
p.s. the audience APPLAUDED the “3,000% Premium drop” line. We’re doomed!
[10]
It’s not only the deliberate “tweeking” of the numbers, but the numbers are static as well. They do not address normal economic dynamics that are full of numerical fluctuations.
[11]
I read there were only about 200 in the Ohio audience, JR. Many more protesting outside. We’re not doomed yet.
[12]
OT, check this out over at PP — http://polipundit.com/?p=23628
More about the school president that can’t write.
[13]
Jan, I imagine that some of the more responsible accountants and statisticians at CBO are pulling their hair out. They know this is a shell game.
[14]
I wonder if Obama realizes that a 3000% drop in premiums is impossible? That at 100% drop the premium is reduced to $0 and beyond that he will have to start mailing us all checks?
[15]
Justrand
I mentioned that “3000%” number, in an earlier post, flung our by Obama at an Ohio rally yesterday. When you listen to this man his words are all off the cuff. Nothing is based on fact. It is only put out there to sound good!
[16]
These were the days! Boy I remember this stuff.
[17]
I’m going to have to mail the man some of the leftover math workbooks my kids did on percents!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[18]
I would think, INC, that people would be “mocking” Obama’s math!
[19]
JR, it was a hand picked audience. They all were loons, with no math ability. So it is about what one would expect at such an event.
[20]
March 16 (Bloomberg) — U.S. employers won’t hire enough workers this year to lower the jobless rate much below the level of 9.7 percent reached in February, three Obama administration economic officials said today.
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, charged in the Fort Hood shootings, was too fat and “chronically” unprofessional during his psychiatric training, according to internal e-mails exchanged by his superiors.
B+ ?
[21]
Here’s an idea –
Perhaps taxpayers should “deem” their taxes to be considered paid without actually sending a check this year.
via twitter
[22]
NYT cuts another 100 in the news room. — http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/times-says-it-will-cut-100-newsroom-jobs/
[23]
Post 16 did you mean this ???
[24]
From what I heard, there was about 200 in attendance. Considering it was Cleveland (Ohio’s version of crook county), that is pathetic. Also heard there was several thousand outside protesting Obama.
Here is a video from WBNS-TV (Columbus). At the 1:40 mark they have a guy who talks about the kool aid. You can tell from the one few that the crowd was sparse.
http://www.10tv.com/live/content/video/10tv.html?referralObject=ka:948817