Word: cbo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Influence Policy. The focus of their ire is the CBO's boss, Alice M. Rivlin, 46. When she came to the Hill as the first head of Congress's budget bureau in 1975, she had been a highly regarded working economist at that liberal Democratic enclave, the Brookings Institution. Maine's Senator Edmund Muskie, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, personally steered her into the job. Now some of his-and her-colleagues in both parties wish her four-year term could be cut short...
...main complaint against Rivlin is that she is too publicity-conscious and sometimes goes beyond her $52,500-a-year job as staff technician and seeks to influence policy. The CBO, with its staff of 208 economists and other specialists, was set up to analyze tax and spending options in all areas, from defense to welfare, and assess costs and probable impact on the economy. As a result, Congress can now set spending ceilings and sometimes even cut appropriations to stay under them. At the same time, the legislators can keep a close watch on individual spending programs. Before, Congress...
Rivlin started out by annoying conservatives. In one report she pointed out that President Ford's spending budget was inadequate to the needs of the economy. Lately the CBO has been digging into Carter proposals-and the reaction of Democrats has been equally pained. After assessing the President's energy plan, Rivlin announced that the Administration's estimates of what the program would accomplish were "overly optimistic." For example, the CBO found that savings on oil imports would be closer to 3.5 million bbl. daily by 1985 than the 4.5 million bbl. projected by the President. Said...
Giaimo now talks about creating specific guidelines to govern the way the CBO releases its reports-meaning a muzzle for its chief...
...skirmishing has tended to obscure the effective work being done by the CBO. Says Karen Williams, the Senate Budget Committee's chief counsel: "Before the CBO, we just did not have the figures to work with. Now CBO studies on defense issues have allowed us to take a really good look at costs. The same goes for proposed food-stamp and Social Security reform." In short, the information supplied by the CBO holds down spending because it forces ordinarily open-wallet Congressmen to face up to deficits. Majority Leader James Wright of Texas was particularly incensed a few months...