Garbage In ; Garbage Out, or The CBO Said What?!

“Garbage in, garbage out.” So goes the venerable computer aphorism which tells us that the quality of what a computer produces is dependent upon the quality of the data input. Enter faulty data into a computer and it will spit out faulty conclusions. This is the very essence, an essence not well understood and cunningly concealed, of the work product of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), particularly during the last two years.

Trying to stave off the ObamaCare repeal effort, Dems have taken to claiming that not only will ObamaCare reduce the budget deficit, if repealed it will actually increase it! So says the CBO, lauded as the bi-partisan, highly respected arbiter of congressional fiscal responsibility and sanity. ABC’s George Stephanopolous, former Clinton Administration talking head, said of the CBO, “They’re the only game in town; they’re the referees.” Also providing able assistance is the lamestream media, only 16% of which has, to date, informed the public of ObamaCare CBO sleight-of-hand.

The ultimate problem with any figure produced by the CBO is that it is required to do its calculations and projections based entirely on the figures and assumptions provided for it by its congressional masters. It is therefore common for the CBO to produce reports with wildly varying, even directly contradictory, cost estimates relating to the same issue and/or bill over time.

Let’s say that Senator Leghorn Harumph Fogbreath (D-State of Confusion) wants to pass a bill that will mandate the elimination of salt from the national diet. The figures and assumptions he provides the CBO for the first five years under the bill go something like this:

(1) Establishment of Federal Bureau of Salt Enforcement: $300 billion
(2) Annual FBSE operating budget: $100 billion = $500 billion
(3) Annual FBSE advertising budget: $200 billion = $1 trillion
(4) Annual office Supplies and salt-free, organic lunches: $100 billion = $500 billion
(5) Annual security to protect everyone involved from an enraged public and crazed chefs: $200 billion = $1 trillion

The CBO dutifully retires to its chambers and spits out a five year initial cost of $3 trillion dollars for operating expenses and $300 billion initial start up costs. Senator Fogbreath is outraged, but a sly old Washington hand, he directs his staffers to come up with some more accommodating assumptions, and the CBO again retires to work its actuarial magic:

(1) Savings due to positive health benefits: $3 trillion (roughly three million Americans X $1000 in health savings. Why $1000 per person? Why not? We're making this up as we go!). Ooops. That’s $3 trillion a year. $3 trillion times 5 = $15 trillion!
(2) Money saved from salt production applied to the production of new super efficient solar, wind and moonbeam technology: $1 trillion per year = $5 trillion. We expect dramatic breakthroughs any day now...
(3) Surprise discovery of largest gold deposit known to man under the floor of the first floor congressional aide’s men’s restroom: $1 trillion per year = $5 trillion. It could happen...
(4) Increased tax revenue due to more productive workforce due to eliminated water retention: $2 trillion per year = $10 trillion. No more salty dogs; Arrrrr!

The CBO does its voodoo and Senator Fogbreath proudly announces on the floor of the senate that his bill will produce new revenues and savings totaling $32 trillion dollars! Oh, minus $300 billion initial start up costs, but that’s just pocket change in the congressional big leagues. And that, gentle reader, is exactly the way the CBO works.

Let’s set aside, for the moment, common sense which tells us that spending huge amounts of money we don’t have on top of a massive and ever-growing national debt cannot possibly save money and surely cannot reduce the deficit. Only ceasing new spending can even begin the process of deficit reduction. Harken instead unto the Dems, who tell us that ObamaCare must not be repealed, because it will save $230 billion over ten years. However, it will work this miracle only if, in the process--and this is a feature, not a bug--taxes are increased by $770 billion and spending by $540 billion. Repeal ObamaCare and the $230 billion in savings will be lost, lost! And where did the Dems get these figures? From the CBO who dutifully crunched the numbers and assumptions given them by the very Dems lauding the results.

These numbers are fairy dust and Unicorn tails. The true costs of ObamaCare, using realistic figures and assumptions, easily run two to four times the projected costs and there are no--absolutely none--savings associated with it. Even if we forget the enormous start up and continuing personnel costs, if ObamaCare succeeds in meeting its ultimate goal of driving all private insurance companies out of business and forcing the establishment of a single (tax)payer system as Mr. Obama dreams, our tax revenues will plummet even as governmental outlays skyrocket. In addition, much of the implementation and management of the bill is relegated to unaccountable bureaucrats who will establish and enforce rules, rules that will mandate untold additional expenditures over and above the wildest imaginations of some of the wildest money spending, deficit increasing imaginations in existence--congressional Democrats.

It’s already well known that Dem pronouncements are to be taken with a pinch of salt. Mr. Obama’s by comparison require an entire salt lick block. But with the help and directions of the Dems, CBO pronouncements should currently be taken with sufficient salt to pay a Roman Legion. Senator Fogbreath would be proud.