While the Senate’s “Vote-a-Rama” for Build Back Better v2.0, better known as the Inflation Reduction Act, is underway, it seems that the Congressional Budget Office hasn’t even finished scoring the bill we’ve been assured reduces inflation.
CBO says in letter to Schumer that it hasn’t finished full cost estimates of bill, including in sections under the Senate Finance Committee’s jurisdiction — a big chunk of the bill that deals with health care and taxeshttps://t.co/wrsg7XMVxR
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) August 6, 2022
Dear Mr. Leader:
This letter provides information about the budgetary effects of H.R. 5376, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, as amended in the nature of a substitute (ERN22410) and posted on the website of the Senate Majority Leader on August 6, 2022: www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/inflation_reduction_act_of_20221.pdf
The Congressional Budget Office has not yet completed point estimates for every title, but for those that we have completed, the estimated budgetary effects for 2022, the 2022-2026 period, and the 2022-2031 period are shown in the attached table.
We will provide updated estimates of the other titles as soon as they are available.
Here is the CBO’s estimate so far which… would have been enough to scare Manchin away back when he pretended to be moderate.
- Title I, Committee on Finance, would reduce deficits by more than $1 billion over the 2022-2031 period.
- Title II, Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, would increase deficits by less than $135 billion over the 2022-2031 period.
- Title III, Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, would increase deficits by less than $332 billion over the 2022-2031 period.
- Title IV, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, would increase deficits by less than $83.076 billion over the 2022-2031 period.
- Title V, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, would increase deficits by less than $198 billion over the 2022-2031 period.
- Title VI, Committee on Environment and Public Works, would increase deficits by less than $67.264 billion over the 2022-2031 period.
- Title VII, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, would increase deficits by less than $37 billion over the 2022-2031 period.
- Title VIII, Committee on Indian Affairs, would increase deficits by less than $20.5 billion over the 2022-2031 period.
- Title IX, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, would increase deficits by less than $726.38 billion over the 2022-2031 period.
I’m not a stellar math student, but that seems like a lot of deficit increasing. No wonder the Democrats want to pass the bill before the CBO finishes scoring it.
There is still a new 30-page section to score, which was amended in recently. This is going to be another big spending bill that the Democrats will use to fund pet projects and not actually reduce any inflation with. Full steam ahead.
Special thanks to Joe Manchin, who appears to be cashing in his winnings and is on his way out the door (whether voluntarily or by force). This spending bill is entirely on him.