The Actual CBO Report

For about a week we have heard that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had released a report that purportedly showed that the Democrats' stimulus proposal would be ineffective. This was based on a flawed AP report which stated that a leaked CBO “report” showed that it would take years before an infrastructure spending program to boost the economy.

Even though the story was false and the CBO report did not actually exist, the AP story took off. Think Progress has found that since the story was posted, the non-existent CBO report had been cited at least 81 times on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, the Sunday shows and the network newscasts in order raise questions about Obama’s recovery plan.

Now the Congressional Budget Office has actually released their report which states that roughly two-thirds of the spending and tax cuts in the House stimulus plan would “flow into the economy by the end of fiscal 2010, producing a ‘noticeable impact on economic growth and employment.’”

Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office actually released the “first actual cost estimate” of the plan. The results of the actual report are far more encouraging than Repuglicans have been stating. Indeed, the CBO found that implementing the stimulus plan "would have a noticeable impact on economic growth and employment in the next few years." Specifically, the CBO estimates that in the spending portion of the bill, $477 billion out of $604 billion would be disbursed either this fiscal year which ends in October or in the next fiscal year, for a sum total of 79% of the whole stimulus package. At the asme time the portion of the bill that I hate, the tax cuts, nearly 100% of them are allocated during the next 18 months.

Citing this actual CBO report, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the plan will help create jobs while making responsible investments for the future.

Will this actual CBO report get the same kind of attention?

Obama Picks His Budget Chief

President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday nominated Peter Orszag to head the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB). As OMB director, Orszag, would prepare the president's federal budget proposals for Congress and analyze the effectiveness of government programs and policies. He will also have a big role in determining funding priorities for the Federal government.

Currently Orszag is the director of the Congressional Budget Office, which calculates the cost of legislative proposals for the House and Senate to consider in their deliberations. It is being written that Orszag has expertise in retirement security, health care and climate change issues. Orszag has also been an honest and loud voice warning about the exploding growth in the annual deficits, and the country's outragous debt load. He has also spoken out about the shortfalls in the Social Security and Medicare programs.

You may remember that President-elect Obama often promised during the campaign that his economic team would go through the federal budget "page by page, line by line" to get rid of programs that aren't working and making others more cost effective. Orszag is definitely a great fit for this job. Along with his experience with the Congressional Budget Office, Orszag served as deputy director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution and served in the Clinton administration as a special assistant to the president for economic policy and senior economic adviser to the National Economic Council.