The Democrats’ bookkeeping gambit on BBB is so brazen that we still can’t believe they think they can get away with it. Put simply, they count 10 years of revenue to pay for five years of new spending programs. Any CEO who tried this would be put in prison.
The Congressional Budget Office has to score what Congress gives them, so they show massive deficits in the first five years of the Build Back Broker bill and then the next five years with big surpluses. (Amazing that even when they cook the books they can’t make the numbers add up.)
Is there any human being on the planet who actually believes these surpluses will emerge when these new entitlement programs magically go away?
West Virginia senator Joe Manchin says he doesn’t. But we’re skeptical that he will stick to his guns here. If he does cave in to Biden-Schumer, he will be a co-conspirator in one of the greatest financial swindles of all time.
A new Manchin riff on BBB fiscal gimmickry: "One goes for 3 years. One goes for 1 year and maybe one other one might go for the full 10 years. Do they not intend for those programs to last the full 10 years? Well, if you intend for that to happen, what's the real cost?"
— Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) December 7, 2021