Sen. Lee Demands Transparency from CBO on Health Care and Taxes

November 7, 2017

WASHINGTON – Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) issued the following statement Tuesday after hearing reports that the Congressional Budget Office was in the process of changing its health care model to show that repealing the individual mandate would save significantly less money than the agency claimed just a few months ago during the heath care debate:
 
“I feel like I’m trapped in a game of Calvinball,” Sen. Lee said. “Just a few months ago the CBO had us playing by one set of rules for debating health care policy and now we are being told those rules have been completely changed for tax policy. This is simply unacceptable and it is why Congress must pass the CBO Show Your Work Act of 2017.”
 
The CBO Show Your Act would require the CBO to publish its data, models, and all details of computation used in its cost analysis and scoring. CBO would keep its role as official scorekeeper of congressional budget proposals – but now the American people and the economic community would be able to see what’s going on in all those spreadsheets and algorithms.
 
The CBO Show Your Work Act of 2017 has 14 co-sponsors including, Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Steve Daines (R-MT), Jim Inhofe (R-OK),  Ron Johnson (R-WI), James Lankford (R-OK), Rand Paul (R-KY), David Perdue (R-GA), Jim Risch (R-ID), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).