The Congressional Budget Office concluded on Tuesday that President Joe Biden‘s Build Back Better Act will not pay for itself, as numerous Democrats have declared, because it will yield far less revenue than the White House predicted, National Review reported.
Biden claimed on Twitter that the Build Back Better Act “costs zero dollars,” while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said during a press conference that the bill’s “dollar amount…is zero.”
White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain made the same unfounded claim.
Nope: The net cost is still zero because we raise more than enough revenue to pay for every investment without raising taxes on anyone making less than $400k. https://t.co/3gKp6H3O5K
— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) October 28, 2021
CBO Director Phillip Swagel has not released a full estimate for the Build Back Better Act’s net cost, but he has already contadicted their initial estimates.
The White House stated that a proposal to equip the Internal Revenue Service with more tools to reduce tax evasion, including nearly 90,000 new tax collectors, would increase the federal government’s revenue by $400 billion over 10 years.
The CBO said the IRS provision could generate $120 billion in revenue over 10 years.
The Biden administration has begun to warn Democratic representatives not to trust the CBO’s cost projection.
Five House Democrats said that they will not vote on the bill until the CBO releases its score.
Along the same anti-CBO line, The Conversation on Nov. 16 published an op-ed from a university professor who claims that he knows “that the office’s figures are often used for partisan reasons.”
The CBO has a “non-partisan” label, though all federal departments and agencies display a left-wing bias.
Congress and the White House had expected a vote on the legislation this week, but the confirmation that the Build Back Better Act does not pay for itself may slow the process.
