Political Quotes

“Mr. President, it has been asserted this week that under section 312 of the Congressional Budget Act, the chair of the Budget Committee has the authority to instruct the Congressional Budget Office, known as CBO, and the Joint Committee on Taxation, known as JCT, to ignore budget law when developing cost estimates for legislation, including budget reconciliation bills. It has further been asserted these directed estimates are appropriate to use for budget enforcement purposes claiming that past Budget chairs have taken similar actions. This is false. I would like to put some facts into the record. Section 257 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act defines how CBO and JCT should construct the baseline. This is called the current law baseline. This act does not defer to some unlimited authority of the Budget chair, provide for multiple or competing baselines, or say the current law baseline should not be used for scoring reconciliation bills. For 40 years, Congress has used cost estimates based on section 257 of this act. Codifying the baseline established a standard budget enforcement regime, ensuring that CBO and the Office of Management and Budget use the same baseline definition when developing their respective economic forecasts and budget projections. There are some very specific instances when section 257 directs CBO to consult with the Budget Committees to determine whether a proposed law should continue in the baseline.…”