CBO Makes the Case for Change of a Different Sort

J.D. Foster / October 04, 2010

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Douglas Elmendorf recently testified before the Senate Budget Committee on policies that might give the economy a helpful lift in the near term. Congress is right to be concerned. But for an inventory surge last winter, the economy remains stuck in low gear at about 1 percent growth. This is too slow even to prevent unemployment from rising over time, let alone helping the ranks of the unemployed find new jobs.

As the muddling economy shows painfully clearly, what Congress has wrought so far—massive stimulus spending and deficits, badly designed tax cuts, repeated waves of new regulations, and now a threatened massive tax hike—has not helped and has almost certainly hurt. So CBO is a logical place among many for Congress to turn for guidance, but unfortunately what they received in return was a modern rendition of the old saying about the blind leading the blind. (more…)