CBO

We now have a pattern on our hands. When the math behind Barack Obama's health care plans doesn't work, Obama attacks math. Now, he doesn't do it directly. He gets Peter Orzsag to debase his intellect for Obama's political ends. First, he did it with the IMF score. Then this week he pressured the CBO scorers early this week after their math provided defeat after defeat to his healthcare dreams. And then this weekend, Orzsag has attacked Doug Elmendorf, the CBO director.

Case 1: The IMF. At a G-20 meeting earlier this year, Barack Obama came away empty-handed. The only success was to send money to the IMF. $100b. This wasn't going to pass on its own, so they attached it to the Supplemental that paid for our troops. And claimed that $100b leaving the treasury costs nothing. According to the Politico, Orzsag had a totally unprecedented meeting with the OMB scorers putting political pressure on them to cook the books. Only a little comment at the time. Oh ... and no one bought Orzsag's nonsense, and the amount became a focus of attention as a bailout of European banks.

Case 2: CBO Whitehouse meeting. Earlier this week, the President meant with the Director of the CBO. According to Jake Tapper, there was a lot of pushback against the unprecedented nature of the meeting:

Said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky: "I noticed that the CBO director was sort of called down to the White House yesterday. It strikes me as somewhat akin as the owner of the team asking the umpires to come up to the owner's box."

McConnell said that "if the CBO is to have credibility, they're the umpire. They're not players in this game."

CBO is tasked with providing “objective, nonpartisan, and timely analyses to aid in economic and budgetary decisions on the wide array of programs covered by the federal budget.”

Case 3: Keith Hennessey puts it nicely, "CBO Kills the President's Medicare Comission Proposal". You see, the CBO found that Obama's great plan to limit costs was to create a commission only saved $2b. One half of one percent of the total cost. So what happens? Orzsag goes after Elmendorff in all but name:

A final note is worth underscoring. As a former CBO director, I can attest that CBO is sometimes accused of a bias toward exaggerating costs and underestimating savings. Unfortunately, parts of today’s analysis from CBO could feed that perception. For example, and without specifying precisely how the various modifications would work, CBO somehow concluded that the council could "eventually achieve annual savings equal to several percent of Medicare spending...[which] would amount to tens of billions of dollars per year after 2019." Such savings are welcome (and rare!), but it is also the case that (for good reason) CBO has restricted itself to qualitative, not quantitative, analyses of long-term effects from legislative proposals.  In providing a quantitative estimate of long-term effects without any analytical basis for doing so, CBO seems to have overstepped.

What is going on is crystal clear. The CBO is not caving to extended political pressure. After weeks of Pelosi "scolding" and Baucus aides "expressing frustration" it has come to open attacks on the CBO, its director, and the institution's integrity.

Well. I have to say, finally Barack Obama is bringing change I can believe in. Chicago-style change.

The latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report recently reported their findings on the cost of the Senator Ted Kennedy’s health care bill that would cover 16 million of the 46-47 million uninsured.  Before going into the nitty-gritty of the report, the uninsured count includes illegal immigrants, those who are eligible for federal programs but have not signed up, and those who have the ability to pay for insurance but choose not to do so.

Back to the costs: The CBO has estimated that $1.3 trillion would be required over 10 years to cover just 16 million of the uninsured. This does not include the public option, the deal that President Barack Obama wants. The reality is that the public option would ultimately lead to a government-run, single-payer health care plan for America.

Based on these numbers, the cost to cover one of the uninsured is $8,125 per person per year. If the estimated population of the United States was put at 307 million, the end cost per year of ObamaCare would be just over $2.49 trillion per year.

Considering that there are over $77 trillion coming in liabilities in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest on the debt, and the debt itself, adding this will ultimately break the bank and kill any hope of economic freedom for Americans who will be enslaved by the government to cover the debt either by confiscation taxes on all Americans or by massive hyperinflation.

Congratulations, America. You’ve been had (for electing these weasels in Washington) and now you, your children, and your children's children are going to pay the consequences.

A week ago the AP reported on a leaked analysis by the Congressional Budget Office saying that it would take YEARS for the money from the stimulus plan to reach the economy. The media pounced on it and in the last week this analysis was cited 81 times in the MSM, usually calling it a "CBO Report".

Problem is, no such report ever existed. You can see the entire non-report here.

It is based on a very early version of the plan, and only a portion of it at that - $300 million of the $825 million (that which is headed for the Appropriations Committee,  not that for  the Ways and Means or Energy and Commerce Committees). And, it is based on the standard model is spending, it makes no allowance for the ability to accelerate in response to the current crisis.

So much for that famous MSM liberal bias.

The actual CBO Report is now available.

Assuming enactment in mid-February, CBO estimates that the bill would increase outlays by $92 billion during the remaining several months of fiscal year 2009, by $225 billion in fiscal year 2010 (which begins on October 1), by $159 billion in 2011, and by a total of $604 billion over the 2009-2019 period.

In other words, two-thirds in the first 18 months.

And lest you think I made the first part of this post up, I quote the report:

This is the first cost estimate that CBO has prepared for H.R. 1 in its entirety. A previous preliminary estimate that has been widely cited addressed only the budgetary impacts of an earlier version of the provisions contained in Division A, at the request of the House Committee on Appropriations.

I wish I could remember where I first heard this mentioned (so I could give credit where credit is due), but there is another thing to remember about letting the Dems run a $1T+ deficit and it has nothing to do with "economic stimulus":