Keith Hall: Congress’ Scorekeeper Is Under Attack. It Deserves Our Trust.
Keith Hall is a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, former Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and former chief economist of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and the Department of Commerce, and is a board member of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. He recently wrote an opinion piece for Barron's, an excerpt of which is below.
Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation together estimated the budgetary effects of the House GOP’s “Big, Beautiful” tax and spending bill. They found that it will add $3.0 trillion to the U.S. debt over the next decade. President Donald Trump and his allies, who maintain that the bill won’t actually decrease the deficit, responded to that forecast by slamming the CBO, claiming it is staffed with partisans who get the numbers wrong.
I led the CBO from 2015-19. I know from firsthand experience that there will always be critiques and disagreements about the office’s projections. But the CBO remains worthy of the public and the government’s trust.
Read the entire piece here.
Published works by members or staff of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget do not necessarily reflect the views of all members or staff of the Committee.
