House Republicans are making the lack of a formal cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office a cornerstone of their argument against passing President Joe Biden’s sweeping social spending package.
In raising Republican objections to the spending bill, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Friday told reporters at the Capitol that “the Congressional Budget Office has not shown the American people exactly how much this bill will cost.”
“Why would they push something through without even having a score?” said McCarthy, a California Republican.
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Rep. Kevin Hern, an Oklahoma Republican, made a similar point.
“A small number of Democrats are requesting that they have time to read the bill and understand what the bill’s cost is, which we will not know for weeks. What a novel idea! #BuildBackBroke,” Hern tweeted.
The CBO scores most major legislation, including Obamacare and the 2017 tax cuts. In passing the latter, Democrats accused Republicans of employing budget maneuvers to disguise the true cost of the measure, which the office later projected to add $1.9 trillion to deficits over 10 years.
Both parties have passed bills without waiting for the CBO scores. In her efforts to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2010, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi infamously quipped: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it — away from the fog of the controversy.”
But such maneuvers are common in Congress.
The CBO was created by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, and its operations began the following year. The office makes no policy recommendations but provides nonpartisan analyses of what bills would cost to implement.
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As House Democratic leadership on Friday struggled to whip the necessary votes to pass the nearly $2 trillion budget reconciliation package and a bipartisan infrastructure bill they have characterized as companion legislation, the lack of a CBO score for the spending bill became a sticking point with centrist Democrats. The CBO said its score would be available the week of Thanksgiving, leaving the bill’s path to a planned Friday vote unclear.
With no Republicans expected to vote for the spending bill in the House, Democrats can only afford to lose three votes — therefore, they far lack the votes to pass the bill as they fail to reach an agreement between centrists and progressives.
