Asserting that congressional budget action has been hampered by inaccurate economic projections, Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., a member of the Budget Committee, is pushing legislation that would increase congressional oversight of the Congressional Budget Office.
"CBO estimates and projections are only as good as the assumptions on which they are based," Abraham said in a statement. He said Congress was surprised by the office's most recent budget estimates. In January, he said, the CBO projected a $5 billion deficit for FY98, with a $655 billion surplus for 1998-2008. Last month, the budget office projected a $63 billion surplus for FY98 and a $1.6 trillion surplus for 1998-2008.
"Those are massive discrepancies ... and they have a significant impact on our ability to legislate," Abraham said, adding, "Congress has been determining its budgets and appropriations with inaccurate revenue estimates."
The bill, which House Republicans pushed during the 102nd Congress, would establish a Congressional Budget Board to provide general oversight of the budget office.
In addition, it would establish an Economic Advisory Council--a group of 12 experts who would evaluate the CBO's research. Finally, it would require any CBO report that evaluates the impact of legislation on revenue or spending to disclose the economic, technical and behavioral assumptions behind the estimates. The CBO now has a panel of economic experts that meets twice a year, but it also evaluates the office's work at other times.
Republicans have attacked the CBO for several months, with leaders charging that the office's estimates hindered their ability to consider tax cut bills that would use the surplus. Even now, some congressional Republicans have said the CBO's surplus estimates are too low. And just last week, two contributors to a CBO report on the impact of capital gains tax cuts proposed by House Speaker Gingrich said they were concerned that having their names listed as evaluators of the report implied that they agreed with its conclusions. The two, Mark Bloomfield and Margo Thorning of the American Council for Capital Formation, said the report did not give sufficient weight to other reports on the subject.
NEXT STORY: 'Gag clauses' banned in federal health plans