Former CBO chiefs defend the agency

WASHINGTON — The former directors of the Congressional Budget Office — a bipartisan group that includes some of the nation’s most eminent economists — published a letter defending the agency Friday, after weeks of strident criticism from the Trump administration.

President Trump’s deputies have attacked the CBO publicly and relentlessly in response to its unforgiving analyses of Republican proposals to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act. Although the agency’s current director, Keith Hall, was appointed by a Republican Congress, the administration has argued that the methods the agency uses are unsound and that its staff favors the Democratic agenda.

Partisan criticism of the CBO is nearly as old as the agency itself, which began operating in 1975. All the same, those criticisms have been particularly intense this year, amid a political environment in which partisan disputes over basic facts and arithmetic have replaced debates over values, principles and visions for the place of American government in society.

The unusual letter reflects that environment. It is addressed to top Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate: R-Wis.; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, DCalif.; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y.

The CBO is tasked with providing lawmakers with impartial information about the federal budget, taxes and the national debt. According to the latest projections from the agency, issued Wednesday, agenda. the Senate’s version of the GOP bill to undo Obamacare would result in some 22 million additional Americans going without insurance after a decade.