Congressional Budget Office reports undermine GOP distortions

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Congressional Republicans love to cite reports from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) – except, of course, when the CBO report undermines the line of bullshit Republicans ae selling the American public, aided and abetted by a lazy stenographer news media who never fact check what Republicans are saying (you know who you are).

Here are two recent examles from just this week.

Politico reported this CBO Report: At least 600K jobs created:

Between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs were created or saved through September as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to a Congressional Budget Office report (pdf).

The data, released Monday, say the real inflation-adjusted gross domestic product was 1.2 percent to 3.2 percent higher than it would have been had the $787 billion stimulus package not passed in February. Also, the stimulus lowered the unemployment by between 0.3 and 0.9 percentage points, according to the report.

The new figures are slightly higher than CBO’s March estimates that between 600,000 and 1.5 million jobs were saved or created by the third quarter of this year, the report said.

CBO also estimates that the stimulus upped federal spending by $100 billion while cutting tax revenue by $90 billion, according to Bloomberg.

On Monday, the CBO also released its report on the cost of the Senate health care reform bill. No Big Cost Rise in U.S. Premiums Is Seen in Study – NYTimes.com

The Congressional Budget Office said Monday that the Senate health bill could significantly reduce costs for many people who buy health insurance on their own, and that it would not substantially change premiums for the vast numbers of Americans who receive coverage from large employers.

The eagerly awaited report, which came as the Senate began debate on the legislation, provided Democrats with ammunition against Republicans who have criticized the bill on the ground that it would raise costs for a majority of Americans.

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[A]s a result of the [federal] subsidies, [the report] said, most people in the individual insurance market would see their costs decline, compared with the costs expected under current law. The subsidies, a main feature of the bill, would cost the government nearly $450 billion in the next 10 years and would cover nearly two-thirds of premiums for people who receive them.

For most people who get health insurance through employers — five-sixths of the total market — the budget office concluded that there would be little change in their premiums relative to the amounts projected under current law. [caveat: premiums are projected to continue increasing annually under current law and the Senate bill]

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[For people receiving subsidies, the budget office said, premiums would be 56 percent to 59 percent lower than under current law.]

“The C.B.O. has rendered a fundamental judgment that this will reduce the deficit and reduce people’s premium costs,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, who huddled with Senate Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill on Monday. “All the Republican leadership will guarantee you is the status quo.”

Not to be deterred by inconvenient truths like facts, Congressional Republicans cherry-picked the CBO prediction that unsubsidized premiums in the individual insurance market, less than a fifth of those with health insurance, would rise an average of 10 percent to 13 percent. [consistent with current annual increases in premiums]

This of course was the focus of the GOP's media outlet at Faux News. Think Progress » Fox News Distorts CBO Report: Health Care Reform ‘Likely Won’t Bring Private Premiums Down’ "Fox News ran a chyron alleging that the new Congressional Budget Office report on premiums concluded that the Senate health care bill won’t lower health care premiums… The report actually concluded (pdf) the opposite — that, on average, premiums would substantially decrease for the majority of Americans purchasing coverage in the individual market and maintain or lower premiums in the small and large employer markets."