As Senate Republicans scramble to reconcile internal divisions over their sprawling budget proposal, their ire has found a familiar target: the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The agency’s latest report estimated that the GOP-backed legislation would increase the federal deficit by a staggering $2.4 trillion over a decade. In response, Republican leaders, ranging from Speaker Mike Johnson to Senator Rand Paul, have launched a flurry of criticisms at the CBO, dismissing its projections as unreliable or politically motivated. Former President Donald Trump went so far as to falsely label the agency as “Democrat controlled.”
However, let’s be clear: attacking the CBO for doing its job and providing nonpartisan, data-driven analysis is both intellectually dishonest and institutionally corrosive. It’s also profoundly hypocritical, given how both parties have at times celebrated or condemned the agency depending on whether the numbers fit their narrative. Still, the latest Republican assaults go further by suggesting not just error, but bad faith, an accusation that threatens the long-term credibility of an agency designed precisely to be above the partisan fray.
What the CBO Is, and Isn’t
The CBO was established in 1974 to provide Congress with an objective check on the Executive Branch’s budget numbers. Unlike the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, the CBO has no policy agenda. It doesn’t advocate; it analyzes. With a staff of around 275 experts in economics, demography, and budgeting, it churns out hundreds of cost estimates every year. These estimates aren’t commandments, they’re forecasts, designed to inform lawmakers about the likely fiscal impact of legislation.
Critically, the CBO does not take political positions. It makes no recommendations and operates under strict rules that bar political activities by its employees. It’s one of the few remaining institutions in Washington whose entire purpose is to prioritize facts over partisanship.
The Difficulty of Prediction
Forecasting the fiscal effects of legislation is inherently difficult. Economic conditions change. Pandemics happen and voter behavior shifts. Laws don’t operate in a vacuum, they interact with global markets, domestic trends, and unpredictable events. So yes, the CBO has occasionally missed the mark. For example, it overestimated the costs of the Affordable Care Act and underestimated revenues from the 2017 GOP tax cuts. But as policy experts across the spectrum acknowledge, these misfires are not signs of bias, they’re signs of the inherent complexity in projecting the economic behavior of 330 million people.
Even conservative scholars like Jessica Riedl of the Manhattan Institute admit that the CBO is “more accurate than critics suggest.” So do former Republican CBO directors like Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who notes the agency’s projections are “as fair as they can make it” and that “nonpartisanship is in its DNA.”
A Convenient Scapegoat
The real issue isn’t the accuracy of the CBO, it’s that the agency’s findings are politically inconvenient. Republicans are facing growing scrutiny for legislation that expands defense spending and delivers tax breaks while adding trillions to the national debt. Instead of taking responsibility, they’re blaming the referee.
This is part of a broader pattern: when lawmakers like the CBO’s numbers, they take credit. When they don’t, they attack the messenger. As Holtz-Eakin quipped, “When they’re really happy, they say, ‘We did a great job.’ When they’re really unhappy, they say, ‘CBO screwed this up.’” That’s not oversight, that’s cowardice.
Undermining the Institution Hurts Everyone
It’s easy to dunk on the CBO when the numbers don’t go your way. However, undermining a trusted, neutral source of fiscal analysis doesn’t just damage the agency, it damages Congress itself. Without the CBO, lawmakers would be flying blind, relying solely on the partisan spin of the Executive Branch or private think tanks with ideological agendas. That’s precisely what the CBO was created to prevent.
In an era already saturated with misinformation and distrust, the last thing America needs is another institution being dragged through the mud for telling the truth. Republicans, and Democrats, should stop treating the CBO like a partisan opponent and start treating it like the essential public service it is.
The CBO isn’t the enemy. Facts aren’t partisan. And if a bill explodes the deficit, the problem isn’t the scorekeeper, it’s the score.