CBO is not perfect, but it is essential

The Congressional Budget Office, the independent federal legislative financial analyst, isn’t perfect in its predictions. But historically, it’s pretty close. And it is 100 percent independent.

Republicans’ scathing criticism of the CBO’s health plan analysis this week is irresponsible.

It was predictable from President Donald Trump; but lawmakers experienced with the CBO should know better.

The Congressional Budget Office found that the plan would increase the number of uninsured Americans to 52 million — including 24 million now covered by the Affordable Care Act.

That’s worse than the numbers before President Obama’s plan was implemented.

Furthermore, health care costs for the elderly would skyrocket.

Even if the CBO is off by 5 percent this time, the Trumpcare figures are devastating.

Yet White House spokesman Sean Spicer trashed the report, saying “If you’re looking to the CBO for accuracy, you’re looking in the wrong place.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price called the analysis “not believable.”

Here’s the thing: It was Price who recommended the current director of the CBO, conservative Republican Keith Hall, when Price was chairing the House Budget Committee.

“Keith Hall will bring an impressive level of economic expertise to the Congressional Budget Office…” he said. “In particular, during his time at the U.S. International Trade Commission, Dr. Hall has worked on providing Congress with non-partisan economic analyses — a role similar to the responsibilities he will now assume as CBO director.”

The CBO consists of 235 employees, mostly economists and public policy analysts with special expertise.

It is renowned for transparency and for scrupulous ethics. Its reports are routinely reviewed by panels of outside experts to challenge their methodologies.

The agency is as hard on Democrats’ proposals as Republicans’.

In 1993, with Bill Clinton appointee Robert Reischauer at the helm, the CBO report on Clinton’s health care plan killed it.

Democrat Alice Rivlin, the CBO’s first director, earned President Jimmy Carter’s wrath in the late 1970s by trashing his energy proposal.

President Reagan called the CBO’s tax numbers “phony” after it said his tax cut projections wouldn’t come close to panning out.

The CBO’s projections were more accurate than Reagan’s.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who concocted the GOP health care plan, had another take on the CBO numbers: They “exceeded his expectations” by projecting savings of $337 billion over 10 years.

Well, sure. Insure 24 million fewer people, and you’ll spend less. But only in direct spending. The CBO’s mission does not include analyzing increased medical costs that result from not providing basic, preventive care to all those currently insured people.