Rand Paul: “in deciding whether to vote for the ``Big, Not So Beautiful Bill,'' I have asked a very specific question: Will the…”

“in deciding whether to vote for the ``Big, Not So Beautiful Bill,'' I have asked a very specific question: Will the deficit be more or less next year? The answer, without question, is: This bill will grow the deficit. The Federal Government has fancy formulas and hundreds of wonky accountants who inform us of their projections over 10 years, but you often can't trust these projections. In an excellent piece written by the Foundation for Economic Education, entitled ``The CBO's Projections Are Worse Than Useless,'' Eric Schuler writes: Long-term analysis and language is commonplace in U.S. national politics, but it achieves no useful outcome. It confuses far more than it clarifies. It does not provide accurate estimates of long-term results. It does not improve the average voter's understanding of policy effects. And it gives politicians a means to claim they are being fiscally responsible without actually exercising any prudence whatsoever. Sometimes the predictions are off because a new Congress is elected and changes the law. Eric Schuler writes that, for any projection of a 10-year budget to be accurate, the Congressional Budget Office ``has to assume the law won't change for ten years, even as most of the politicians that make the laws risk being replaced [every] two years-- and all of them advocate for changes of one stripe or another . . .”