It’s possible that this could cause swing vote senators to turn against the bill en masse, or force major changes to it. On Monday, CBO released a report estimating the effects of the Senate health care bill, and they look grim - the office projected that if the bill became law, 22 million fewer people would be insured by 2026. Now it’s the fate of Republicans’ attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare that could well be determined by CBO’s pronouncements. Ron Wyden (D-OR) could say in 2008, “The history of health reform is congressmen sending health legislation off to the Congressional Budget Office to die.” But despite - or perhaps because of - those facts, its estimates have been so influential among the political class that Sen. Indeed, in the four decades since its creation, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has carved out an institutional role for itself as the well-respected arbiter not only of how much proposed legislation in Congress would cost but also what its economic effects would likely be.ĬBO has no formal power over anything, and it never takes an explicit position for or against any bill. “Because policy lives and dies by CBO’s word.” Chuck Grassley (R-IA) mused back in 2006. “I say all the time that CBO is God around here,” Sen. And yet, to hear some tell it, it’s an entirely different institution that really calls the shots in Washington. Congress votes on bills, and the president signs them.
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