Budget Experts Across Partisan Divides Agree Congress Should Use Consistent, Rational, and Transparent Measures of Costs and Savings

Concord Coalition Executive Director Carolyn Bourdeaux, Senior Advisor Bob Bixby, and former Chief Economist Steven Robinson joined a recent statement with budget experts from across partisan divides who agree on one thing: how the costs and savings of legislation are measured and enforced should be consistent, rational and transparent. 

Unfortunately, that is far from what is happening in Congress right now.  

The letter documents that “The Senate majority has signaled its intent to abuse a provision of the Congressional Budget Act to ignore official scores from CBO and JCT and instead fabricate their own scores on the spot. That approach is diametrically opposed to these budgeting principles, and it would significantly undermine what’s left of budget enforcement.”

The letter details the dangers when Congress abandons its own rules and Congressional Budget Act requirements, noting that “if Congress can simply assert that its bills cost whatever it wishes, it can then make budget provisions it favors appear free while making provisions it doesn’t favor appear expensive.”  

At the same time, the letter warns that “abusing the Congressional Budget Act to score costs relative to a “current policy baseline” would open the floodgates for further abuse. …The act of fabricating their own cost estimate could allow future Congresses to assert that creating a new entitlement program actually reduces federal spending or that cutting taxes increases federal revenues.”

The signatories include:

• Bob Bixby, Senior Advisor, The Concord Coalition, Host, Facing the Future Podcast
• Carolyn Bourdeaux, Executive Director, Concord Coalition; frmr. Member of Congress, Georgia 07
• Joel Friedman, Senior Vice President for Federal Fiscal Policy, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• Marc Goldwein, Senior Vice President, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
• Bill Hoagland, former Senate Budget Committee Staff Director, Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM)
• Bobby Kogan, Senior Director, Federal Budget Policy, Center for American Progress
• Zach Moller, Director, Economic Program, Third Way
• Kyle Pomerleau, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute*
• Jessica Riedl, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute*
• Ben Ritz, Vice President of Policy Development, Progressive Policy Institute
• Steve Robinson, former chief economist, Concord Coalition; former professional staff, House and Senate Budget Committees
• Nan Swift, Resident Fellow, R Street Institute*

*Note: The signatories above have signed this letter in their individual capacities. Their signatures do not represent the endorsement of the institutions with which they are affiliated.

Read the full letter here