Trump Fluffer Lyin’ Lindsey Graham requested the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to score the Democrats’ Build Back Better Budget Reconciliation bill – correction, he requested the CBO to score a fictional version of the bill which is not the bill advanced by Democrats. I’m not sure why the CBO went along with his bad faith, but it did. CBO issues score on how much Build Back Better would cost if programs were permanent:
The Congressional Budget Office has released a new analysis of the Democrats’ social safety net plan to see how much the bill would cost if a series of provisions were extended long term, fulfilling a [bad faith] GOP request intended to portray the bill as far more expensive than it seems.
The CBO estimates that the version of the legislation without sunsets would “increase the deficit by $3 trillion over 2022 to 2031.” The analysis assumes that any extension wouldn’t be paid for. The current bill, known as the Build Back Better Act, does not include such extensions to the provisions.
The latest CBO score is a Republican-led effort to show that the bill costs more than Democrats say it does, but Democrats are arguing that many provisions in their proposal sunset and therefore the true cost is not what Republicans say it is.
The Hill reports that Trump Fluffer Lyin’ Lindsey Graham intends to use this fake CBO report to try to sway the hillbilly coal baron Joe Manchin to be the one Democrat to kill the bill, along with all 50 Republican senators who do not give a damn about American families or their children.Graham hopes to sway Manchin against Biden plan with new CBO report:
Republicans are hoping to sway Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) into hitting pause on President Biden’s climate and social spending plan — or nixing it altogether — using a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on the cost of the bill if all of its provisions were made permanent (this is not the bill).
Lyin’ Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, mentioned Manchin by name approximately 20 times during a roughly 27-minute press conference Friday on the CBO’s findings and new data that showed inflation has hit a nearly 40-year high.
“Joe Manchin has been wanting to know without gimmicks what would the bill cost. We now know it more than doubles. … I’ve done what Sen. Manchin said somebody should do,” Graham said.
So Graham obviously believes that this West Virginia hillbilly is some kind of ignorant goober who is going to readily fall for this charade. I can’t say that I disagree with him.
“What I think will happen is that Joe will take these numbers and he will start making decisions about what comes next, and my hope is that Sen. Manchin will say, ‘Stop, shelve Build Back Better until we find better answers to where inflation is headed,'” Graham added.
Graham added that he talked to Manchin earlier Friday and hoped the CBO report would give him “great pause.”
“I talked to him this morning. He was stunned. I think he felt vindicated and that his concerns were legitimate,” Graham said.
Sounds like Manchin is an ignorant goober readily falling for this charade, according to Lyin’ Lindsey Graham.
Democrats denounced the CBO report that Graham requested because programs created under the Biden bill are temporary and have built in sunsets. If the programs are extended, Democrats add, they’ve pledged to find new ways to pay for them.
“The Republicans are so desperate to justify their opposition to the popular, much-needed provisions in the Build Back Better Act that they’ve resorted to requesting fake scores based on mistruths,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) added that “Congress and President Biden have made clear: any future extensions of the life-changing provisions of Build Back Better will be fully paid for, as they are today.”
Brian Deese, the White House director of the national economic council, tweeted that Graham requested a CBO score “of a hypothetical future bill” that Biden, “for one, would not support.”
On Friday, House Speaker Pelosi unloaded on Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for coming up with a CBO score for a Build Back Better bill that doesn’t exist. Pelosi Rips Lindsey Graham For Imaginary CBO Build Back Better Score:
Pelosi said in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA:
While Republicans play increasingly desperate and bad-faith political games with a phony score of an imaginary bill, House Democrats have proved our commitment to fiscal responsibility by passing a fully paid for Build Back Better Act.
As nonpartisan experts have repeatedly confirmed, the Build Back Better Act is fully paid for by ensuring the biggest corporations and wealthiest few pay their fair share in taxes. The Build Back Better Act passed by the House will even pay down the deficit by more than $100 billion in this decade and $2 trillion in the next. Democrats’ fiscally sound approach stands in stark contrast to the GOP Tax Scam for the rich, which exploded deficits by $2 trillion.
Congress and President Biden have made clear: any future extensions of the life-changing provisions of Build Back Better will be fully paid for, as they are today. Until then, Democrats are forging ahead with the Build Back Better Act to create jobs, lower everyday costs and cut middle-class taxes.
Also on Friday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki Exposed Lindsey Graham And His Fake CBO Score In Front Of The Entire Country:
Jen Psaki called out hypocrite Lindsey Graham and said that Build Back Better actually pays for the Trump tax cuts that Graham supported.
Jen Psaki shreds Lindsey Graham and congressional Republicans for passing the Trump tax cuts and not paying for them and said that BBB cuts the deficit by $ 2 trillion so Democrats are covering Graham and GOP's "irresponsible" spending. pic.twitter.com/DnIqFsa6gg
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) December 10, 2021
Psaki said when asked about Sen. Graham’s fake CBO score:
This is a fake CBO score. Is not about the existing bill. It’s about proposing the extension of programs that were not agreed to. Without the commitment of the president which he has made repeatedly that he would not support extending these programs that they were not paid for, period. That is his commitment.
I would also note that there is a particular irony here. That shouldn’t be lost on Senator Graham. Maybe it is lost on Sen. Graham? I don’t know. That the plan that they proposed, and passed into law, the 2017 tax cuts, were $2 trillion were not paid for in any way shape or form and that didn’t seem to upset them at all. And I what I will say, and they can thank us in any way they would like for this, our projections, and the projections of our economists is for our plan as it continues in the second decade it would reduce the deficit by $2 trillion, so we’re covering their irresponsible tax cuts to corporations and high wealth individuals.
Jen Psaki took apart the hypocrisy of Lindsey Graham being concerned about adding to the deficit for programs that will lower the cost of prescription drugs, provide universal pre-k, and actually help people while being fine with blowing a two trillion dollar hole in the deficit to give rich people and corporations a big pile of money.
The Fox News crowd and Republicans will take the Graham sham seriously, but for everyone else, it is just another moment of Republican hypocrisy that reaffirms the point that the GOP is for the rich and not for thee.
Well, maybe not everyone at FOX News. Chris Wallace, who announced on his program Sunday that he is leaving Fox News after 18 years for CNN Plus, used his final show to also expose Lyin’ Lindsey Graham for his hypocrisy in supporting deficit busting $2 trillion tax cuts for corporations and the rich. Fox News Host Confronts Lindsey Graham Over Backing Tax Cuts That Add $2T to Deficit:
Fox News anchor Chris Wallace confronted Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, on Sunday over supporting former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts—which are projected to add some $2 trillion to the national debt—while criticizing Democrats for pushing forward legislation that is not entirely paid for.
Graham, along with other Republican lawmakers, has strongly criticized President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act, raising alarms that it will add hundreds of billions to the deficit if passed into law.
This week, the CBO released another score of the Build Back Better act, which assumed that the programs would be made permanent. That estimate predicted the legislation would “increase the deficit by $3 trillion over 2022 to 2031” if the provisions were extended without measures to pay for them. Graham, along with GOP Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, requested the modified CBO estimate.
Wallace pointed out to Graham during an interview on Fox News Sunday that he supported Trump’s signature tax cuts in 2017, despite CBO estimating they’d add some $2 trillion to the deficit. When those tax cuts were passed, Republicans claimed that the tax cuts would pay for themselves, despite the CBO scoring.
“In 2017, President Trump and all Senate Republicans voted for the tax cuts then that added $2 trillion to [the deficit],” Wallace said. “And in fact, you talk about budget gimmicks, it used the same budget gimmick there. For instance, saying that individual tax cuts were going to end in 2025,” Wallace said.
Wallace then played a clip of White House press secretary Jen Psaki making the same point, suggesting that Republicans’ argument against Build Back Better is hypocritical.
“Senator, does she have a point?” Wallace asked Graham.
The South Carolina Republican responded by saying, “No, not really.” He went on to say that he likes “giving money back to the taxpayer” and that he doesn’t like “spending more money than we did in World War II.” Graham said that Democrats are “lying” when they say the bill will be paid for.
Wallace then interjected. “But sir, respectfully, what Jen Psaki is saying—and a lot of Democrats are saying—is that when President Trump and you—you collectively…”
Graham interrupted, asking: “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Let me just finish,” the Fox News anchor continued. “[You] passed the 2017 tax cut—that was a lie. It wasn’t paid for,” he asserted.
Graham suggested that the CBO score didn’t project far enough to show that the tax cuts would be paid for—pointing out that it didn’t go beyond 10 years. “We voted knowing cutting taxes we believed would be good. I never said cutting taxes—I voted for cutting taxes,” the senator said.
“I’m against expanding the government. They’re telling you it doesn’t cost anything, Chris. Well the CBO says it costs $3 trillion” – for a fake bill that he made up.
The only thing Republicans support is tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, which have never been paid for by the disproven and discredited faith based supply-side “trickle down” economic theory. Their tax cuts have never paid for themselves, it went straight to the national debt, which Lyin’ Lindsey Graham just voted to default on.
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“On Friday, House Speaker Pelosi unloaded on Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for coming up with a CBO score for a Build Back Better bill that doesn’t exist.”
Where is Senate Majority Leader Schumer in all this? Along with Speaker Pelosi, shouldn’t he be publicly unloading on Huckleberry Closet Case & his duplicitous orchestra?
James Downie writes at the Washington Post, “Will Joe Manchin see through Lindsey Graham’s desperate scaremongering?”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/12/will-joe-manchin-see-through-lindsey-grahams-desperate-scaremongering/
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham and the truth go together about as well as oil and water.
[On] Sunday, Graham visited “Fox News Sunday” to trumpet a new Congressional Budget Office analysis that estimated the cost if various provisions in the Build Back Better bill were made permanent. The analysis, commissioned by Graham and Rep. Jason T. Smith (R-Mo.), found this modified BBB “would increase the deficit by $3.0 trillion” over the next 10 years. “The vote in the House was based on a fraud,” crowed Graham.
But the only fraud here is Graham. For one, the senator repeatedly pretended his version of the BBB and the actual bill were the same. “President Biden said the bill was fully — fully paid for. Vice President Harris said it was paid for,” he told host Chris Wallace. “The CBO says it’s not paid for. It’s $3 trillion of deficit spending.” Later, he claimed the bill spends “more money than we did in World War II” — which, again, is only true of the alternative CBO score he had.
In the past, Republicans themselves have time-limited parts of bills to lower their top-line costs. In 2017, for example, Republicans made part of the Trump tax cuts end early to keep costs down. (Tellingly, Republicans chose to sunset most of the tax cuts for individuals in 2025 while making the corporate tax cuts permanent.) And unlike Republicans then, Democrats have been open about the sunset. President Biden recently reiterated his pledge to pay for any extended BBB program “whether that’s for a day or a decade.”
When Wallace asked about the GOP hypocrisy, Graham first spluttered, “What’s that got to do with anything?” Then he claimed that Republicans had to end the individual cuts early because “you can’t go beyond 10 years in terms of the budget window” — when the cuts were ended after eight years. And finally, he simply pivoted back to lying about the BBB’s cost.
When it came to the policies of the actual bill, Graham’s answers were no less misleading. Wallace noted that “by blocking Build Back Better, you’d end a child tax credit of up to $3,600 per year per child” — especially valuable when families in South Carolina spend more than a fifth of their income on child care. Graham didn’t even bother contesting that point. Instead, he sidestepped: “Families in my state are getting crushed by inflation,” he said. “This bill, Build Back Better, will be gasoline on the inflation problem.”
Even that dodge isn’t true. Seventeen Nobel laureate economists say the BBB agenda “will ease longer-term inflationary pressures.” And last week 56 economists said the bill “will alleviate strain of inflation on families.” To assert the opposite has no basis in reality.
Graham’s dissembling is only important because of the Democrat he’s talking to. “I wrote a letter to CBO,” he said, “because Joe Manchin came to me and he said, ‘I think this bill is full of gimmicks.’”
What Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III makes of this very public lobbying is an open question — the West Virginian is not known for taking open pressure kindly. But beyond the almost brutish lack of subtlety, one hopes that Manchin recognizes the desperation and shallowness of these GOP arguments against the BBB. Rather than serious alternatives on how to address the child-care crisis or climate change, Graham and his colleagues have nothing but made-up numbers and scaremongering.
Manchin has spoken often of how seriously he takes being the deciding vote in the Senate. Listening to Graham would be a gross abdication of that responsibility.