Word: cbo
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...costs of decontrol far outweigh its minimal benefits. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that it will cost consumers a staggering $16 billion annually in higher prices, not to speak of a higher rate of inflation throughout the economy. And the distribution of this cost will fall most heavily on the elderly and the poor, who spend a greater proportion of their income on fuel...
...energy. But the demand for oil is highly inelastic: price increases do not lead to a proportionate decline in use. From 1973 to the present, the price of home heating oil increased by 184 percent; but instead of falling as the theory would predict, consumption rose 17 percent. The CBO estimates that by 1985 decontrol will reduce current levels of consumption by, at best, a meagre 1.7 percent...
ALICE MITCHELL RIVLIN, 47, since 1975 has been director of the Congressional Budget Office, which was created that year to give objective advice to Congressmen on the cost and effectiveness of various Government programs. Under Rivlin the CBO has annoyed Republicans by reporting that President Ford's spending budget was inadequate for the needs of the economy and nettled Democrats by branding the Carter Administration's estimates of what the energy program would accomplish "overly optimistic...
Bureaucratic Wallflower. Part of the animosity directed at Rivlin stems from the restraints placed on the old-boy network of committee chairmen by the creation of the CBO. In addition, politicians, in or out of Congress, do not take kindly to criticism, no matter how justified...
...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...