I’ve worked with and debated Douglas Elmendorf, the current director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, who right-wing Republicans want replaced as soon as his term ends January 3 by someone more accommodating to supply-side economics. Elmendorf was installed by Republicans when it was still possible to be conservative and sane. But now a veritable Star Wars barroom of right-wingers including Grover Norquist, the denizens of the Heritage Foundation, and assorted Tea Partiers are gunning for him because he won’t use “dynamic scoring” (that is, won’t assume that tax cuts generate economic growth and therefore pay for themselves) and he once issued a positive report on the Affordable Care Act. Since its founding in 1974, the CBO has been a critical component of honest government, but the right doesn’t care about honesty; it wants to be told it’s correct. I haven’t always agreed with Elmendorf but he calls it as he sees it, and if Republicans replace him with a hack who calls it as they want it, that will say more about the dangerousness of this new crowd than whether they shut down the government when they don’t get their way. What do you think?
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 16:11:13 +0000
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