Five items that members of Congress want dynamically scored

Although it was Republicans who wanted more dynamic analysis when they appointed Keith Hall the new director of the Congressional Budget Office in April, Democrats also are expressing interest in budget scores that incorporate the feedback from changes in taxes or spending into the estimates of the cost of laws.

Where Republicans may be more keen to quantify the feedback from tax cuts, however, Democrats pushed last week for doing the same for government spending programs they favor. Hall appeared to be receptive to the idea in congressional testimony last week, acknowledging that credible dynamic analysis goes both ways.

The Republican budget agreement passed earlier in the spring calls for dynamic analyses to be published with traditional “static” analyses for major legislation.

Traditionally, Democrats have been wary of dynamic analysis because they fear Republicans would rely on outsized growth effects of tax cuts to claim that they pay for themselves, either totally or partly.

In oversight hearings, however, it became clear that Democrats as well as Republicans can think of pieces of legislation they would like to see scored dynamically, illustrating that the process could be welcomed by both sides.

Providing the analysis would mean more work for the budget office. Hall requested funds for three new employees for the office, bringing the total to 238, to help with dynamic analysis and health care modeling. He also testified before the Senate that the agency would shift employees to focus more on dynamic scoring.

Some Democrats were not enthusiastic.

“Several of these new requirements, I believe, are nothing more than a backhanded way to make it easier to cut taxes for those who are benefiting greatly over the past several years, and to make it harder to assist those who have not,” said Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats and is their ranking member on the Budget Committee. He also is running for president.

“In other words, I am not a great fan of so-called dynamic scoring,” Sanders said during Hall’s testimony.

But others seemed open to Hall’s assurances that the budget office is capable of arriving at nonpartisan results by pledging transparency in the process. “We’re going to offer ourselves up to criticism and comments if we’re not doing a fair job,” he said.

The office has performed dynamic analyses in the past, including one of a tax reform plan submitted by former GOP House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp last year, the Senate immigration reform plan in 2013, and presidential budgets.

Here are the items that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle suggested adding to the mix:

Taxes and spending

Under the budget agreement, any legislation that affects revenue, spending or deficits by more than 0.25 percent of gross domestic product — or about $44 billion this year — would receive a dynamic score alongside the traditional score.

That provision could prove useful to Republicans working on tax reform, in which they sought to lower tax rates and make up the lost revenue by cutting tax breaks and deductions. Under dynamic scoring, the rate cuts could lead to more growth and revenue, making it necessary to cut fewer tax breaks.

Environmental laws

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked Hall during the oversight hearing if dynamic scoring would apply to environmental protections such as the Clean Air Act.

Whitehouse cited an Environmental Protection Agency analysis that every dollar spent by polluters on clean air yielded $30 in public savings, mostly through reduced health care spending.

Hall said that dynamic scoring would “absolutely” be applied fairly to such a law.

Government research

Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, suggested in the oversight hearing on Thursday that dynamic analysis could apply to government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, which is in his district, as much as it does to taxes.

“Obviously, we could do that sort of work,” Hall responded.

Later in the hearing, Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., extended the question to other government sponsorship of scientific research.

“We’d be like Sierra Leone or … Botswana if we stop doing research,” McDermott said.

“You have to do the kinds of things that innovate. And that’s NASA. That’s NSF,” he added, referring to the National Science Foundation.

Medicaid

Van Hollen also suggested that Medicaid, the low-income health insurance plan jointly administered by the federal government and the states, might partially pay for itself and should be scored as doing so.

He cited a recent study that found that the government recovered 56 cents of every Medicaid dollar spent on children by age 60 because those children paid more in taxes later in life. Van Hollen called it a “respectable return on that federal investment.”

Infrastructure

Van Hollen and Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., suggested that infrastructure spending could be assessed as boosting productivity and growth, and seem less costly in a dynamic analysis.

Improving infrastructure “would have an effect potentially on productivity going forward,’ responded Hall, and a drop in productivity “would not be good for economic growth.”