On the recordFebruary 7, 2019
The Congressional Budget Office is supposed to help Congress evaluate the fiscal costs and benefits of legislation. Given the weight these scores have on the ability of Members of Congress to make policy decisions, it should be a top priority that the CBO standards are of the highest possible quality. CBO should improve and could improve the accuracy of its projections by adopting a transparent process that would allow independent experts to provide technical contributions and verify their conclusions, as is the standard for all academic journals. That is why I have introduced the CBO Show Your Work Act, which would require the CBO to publish online all nonproprietary data, models, and processes utilized in the analysis and scoring of legislation. CBO is the internal accountant for every Member of Congress. Therefore, Members of Congress, and the public they serve, should have access to the data, models, and processes that create the numbers we rely on. ____________________
