Griffith Introduces Amendment to Reform Congressional Budget Office

Congressman Morgan Griffith (R-VA), along with Congressmen Jim Jordan (R-OH), Mark Meadows (R-NC), and Scott Perry (R-PA), today submitted to the Rules Committee an amendment to the Make America Secure Appropriations Act of 2018. This amendment would abolish the Budget Analysis Division of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and transfer its duties to the Office of the Director through the use of the Holman Rule. Griffith stated:

"CBO is meant to help Congress evaluate legislation, but I do not believe the agency as currently constituted can do so effectively. Too often, predictions made by CBO turn out to be far off the mark. For example, it overestimated by millions the number of people who would enroll in the Obamacare exchanges. I have also cited in the past its prediction that a sale of wireless spectrum would be revenue-neutral when the sale in fact earned $40 billion for the government.

"When someone gives you bad advice again and again, why would you trust them to help you make big decisions? I believe Congress would be better served if CBO becomes an aggregator of predictions made by third-party public policy groups across the political spectrum, from left to center to right. To this effect, my amendment abolishes the Budget Analysis Division of CBO, which is responsible for cost estimates of bills and baseline projections of federal spending. Transferring its duties to the Office of the Director will allow flexibility for CBO to find more accurate ways to score legislation and will also save taxpayer dollars.

"CBO's usefulness to Congress is diminished when it provides inaccurate information. The amendment we offer today will give CBO a more constructive role in the policy-making process."

Read this original document at: https://morgangriffith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398759