Irony: Psaki Says Congress' Budget Experts Are Frauds After Biden Calls Them the 'Gold Standard'

By Abby Liebing December 14, 2021 at 3:23pm

President Joe Biden has made the claim that his Build Back Better Act will cost no money.

He has promised that it will not raise inflation, it will not cost middle-class taxpayers more and it won’t add to the national debt.

“The fact of the matter is my Build Back Better Agenda costs $0 — and it won’t raise taxes on anyone making under $400,000 a year. We’re going to pay for it by ensuring those at the top and big corporations pay their fair share,” Biden tweeted in October.

The fact of the matter is my Build Back Better Agenda costs $0 — and it won’t raise taxes on anyone making under $400,000 a year. We’re going to pay for it by ensuring those at the top and big corporations pay their fair share.

— President Biden (@POTUS) October 4, 2021

“My Infrastructure bill will bring down costs by reducing bottlenecks and I urge Congress to pass my Build Back Better Act — which will ease inflationary pressures,” he added in another tweet in November.

However, the Congressional Budget Office contradicted these claims from the president.

“CBO estimates that enacting this legislation would result in a net increase in the deficit totaling $367 billion over the 2022-2031 period, not counting any additional revenue that may be generated by additional funding for tax enforcement,” the CBO outlined in its cost estimate of the Build Back Better Act in mid-November.

With this new price tag, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was questioned about the plan on Monday and challenged on Biden’s claims that the act would cost nothing.

Should the Build Back Better Act be passed?

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy previously commented in a news conference in November that Biden had simply not told the truth about the costs of his Build Back Better plan.

“The CBO’s projection is that it’s going to — that there’s going to be at least a $160 billion increase to the deficit over 10 years. That is 16 trillion cents. So the president was not telling the truth,” Doocy said, according to a White House transcript of the November briefing.

Paski responded at the time with a convoluted answer that attempted to communicate there was an IRS enforcement component of the bill that the CBO did not have the expertise necessary to take into account.

In Monday’s briefing, however, Psaki responded to another question from Doocy by saying that the score the CBO issued was “fake” and should not be considered in discussions about the bill.

“It’s important to understand that when anybody raises a question about this new CBO score, it is a fake score about a bill that doesn’t exist and we should really focus on the actual bill everybody’s going to vote on and considering in Congress,” Paski said, according to a White House transcript.

Press Secretary Jen Psaki calls the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s score stripping out the Democrats’ gimmicks “fake.”

What’s “fake” is Biden’s debunked lie that Build Back Broke is “fully paid for.” pic.twitter.com/06ZMPURLG8

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 13, 2021

However, in the past, Biden has publicly praised the CBO and hailed it as accurate and responsible.

“The CBO … is really the gold standard and no Republican or Democrat questions it,” Biden told Larry King back in February 2010.

FLASHBACK: Joe Biden called the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) the “gold standard.” pic.twitter.com/IlpzZOh9gY

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 18, 2021

The same year, Biden went even further to comment on his trust in the CBO.

“[T]he CBO is respected on both sides of the aisle for its nonpartisan analysis of government programs,” Biden said in May 2010, as RNC Research tweeted.

But now, when the CBO’s estimates for Biden’s plan reveal significant costs, the Biden administration does not seem quite so keen on the CBO.

When questioned on this in November, Paski simply answered that CBO estimates are not necessarily set in stone or entirely accurate. They are estimates.

“Actually, we’ve praised the overall work of the CBO on the Build Back Better Act repeatedly, and that’s what we believe, but again, I would point to the fact that there isn’t a great deal of history or experience in scoring IRS enforcement,” Paski said. “That’s something that economists across the board have noted.”

Submit a Correction →