The Congressional Budget Office released its much-anticipated score of Democrats' social spending package on Thursday evening, finally putting a price tag on President Biden's budget — a cost that will ultimately be paid by American taxpayers.
Contrary to the White House's repeated insistence that the president's budget would "cost zero dollars" and larger claim that his legislative agenda wouldn't add a penny to the federal deficit, the CBO says the "Build Back Better" budget reconciliation package "would result in a net increase in the deficit totaling $367 billion over the 2022-2031 period."
My plans are fiscally responsible.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 29, 2021
They are fully paid for.
They don’t add a single penny to the deficit.
Not only is it not paid for, not only is it increasing taxes on middle class families, but it adds nearly $400B to the deficit.
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) November 18, 2021
Every single thing Democrats ever told you about this bill is a lie. https://t.co/VNKkwI3RfK
Yet again, the Biden administration has been caught lying to the American people with a smile on its collective face. Even though very few people have accused them of being on top of things, it's impossible to imagine they didn't know a CBO score such as the one released tonight was coming. Yet they continued their obfuscation campaign, hoping they could get enough Americans to buy their lies to put pressure on their representatives in Congress to pass the president's disaster of a budget reconciliation package.
While the crew here at Townhall never believed Biden, Psaki, or the rest of the administration when they promised that a massive and woke budget would come at zero cost, there's finally an official record of the true cost of their plans to expand government, limit freedom, and make the federal government even more clumsy and ineffective.
In addition, CBO scoring of the separate titles within Biden's Build Back Better Act reveal other areas in which the lofty promises made by the White House didn't pan out in reality:
So far:
— J.P. Freire (@JPFreire) November 18, 2021
CBO shows that Dems’ reconciliation bill adds billions to deficit.
CBO confirms Dems’ drug pricing scheme kills cures.
CBO corrects White House’s rosy estimates and shows spending $80B on IRS enforcement will only result in $127 billion revenue NOT $400 billion.
Will President Biden or his administration care that they've been caught in a long-running lie? Probably not. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving ahead with a vote on the budget bill as of Thursday night, CBO score be damned. And even before the official price tag was released, the White House began a narrative aimed at discrediting the Congressional Budget Office, saying its nonpartisan analysts weren't even capable of scoring something like the Build Back Better Act.
That disingenuous narrative is sure to continue in the days ahead while the White House tries to get enough Senators on board to get the bill passed, but Biden's past statements prove anything negative he says about the CBO is just more opportunistic falsehoods. Let's take a trip to the archives to see what President Biden used to think about the CBO.
Appearing on Larry King Live as Vice President, Biden called the CBO "really... the gold standard" and said "no Republican or Democrat questions it." In another speech, Biden reiterated his support for the nonpartisan analysts "the only thing Democrats and Republicans agree on is the objectivity of CBO, we all quote their numbers and we quote them even when we don't agree with what we want it to be because they are bipartisan and they are responsible."
In 2009, Joe Biden touted the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as “bipartisan” and “responsible.”
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 18, 2021
Now the White House is openly attacking it. pic.twitter.com/iTEtUFFuqq