TAXPAYERS FOR COMMON SENSE: Volume XX No.7: February 13, 2015
Repeatedly we warned lawmakers to not be fooled by the farm bill apologists’ absurd claims that passing the nearly $1 trillion 2014 farm bill would sow the seeds for reducing the deficit. Recent reports by government agencies confirm the legislation, just like the last two, is on pace to be a budget buster. But saying, \”told you so,\” isn’t enough. It’s time for Congress to stop using fuzzy math and fake offsets to hide the true cost of agricultural program spending.
Generally the legislation is \”scored\” by a nonpartisan arm of Congress, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). When scoring, CBO looks at current law and market conditions to establish a 10-year baseline then estimates any spending or revenue changes resulting from a proposed bill. In this tight budgetary environment, bills that increase future deficits against the baseline have to find offsets, bills that don’t or even reduce projected deficits get the green light. According to CBO’s analysis of the farm bill as introduced in January 2014, the bill came out at $956 billion—$16.6 billion less than the cost of extending the current law. Proponents patted themselves on the back for this bipartisan deficit reduction success!
It’s a year later and lo and behold, it turns out the celebration was a tad premature. Many of the new programs created are projected to be much more expensive. CBO has upped the estimated price tag on just two new income entitlement programs by $9.5 billion (35%). And it turns out there were cost overruns in 2014 because of has upped the estimated
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