The CBO seems to cherry-pick results either to create headlines or to justify its existence with elaborate reports that make them appear credible. But they aren’t.
On June 3 we read an article by Jay Davidson that the CBO thinks Trumps “Big Beautiful Bill” will increase the deficit by $3.8 trillion over 10 years. Color me skeptical. The CBO has absolutely zero inkling for how this bill will actually change the economic landscape of America over the next 10 years. Sure, a high-schooler can do the math of estimated federal income versus proposed spending, ignorantly assuming nothing else changes over the next 10 years, and come up with a number. After all, growth in the deficit is simply the result of cumulative spending more than cumulative receipts.
But now the CBO thinks the tariffs will decrease the federal deficit by $2.5 trillion. So, in a matter of days, we went from $3.8 trillion addition to the deficit to $2.5 trillion reduction of the deficit? How can that be?
The CBO arms itself with all kinds of really cool charts, graphs, and tables that are probably morphed into a computer simulation because no one person (except those with the last names “Trump” and “Musk”) could possibly reduce all these variables into a single prediction model. The CBO references such things as the “Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model,” “Input-Output Accounts Data,” “A Simplified Model of How Macroeconomic Changes Affect the Federal Budget,” etc.
But all they have proven recently is they’re just guessing. All those “climate scientists” also justify their predictions using complex computer models that no mere peasant could possibly understand, so we are to “trust the science.” Except none of us have notice the oceans swallowing up coastal cities yet.
My opinion? The CBO got caught with its pants down after reporting the bad news on the “Big Beautiful Bill” but then realized that the tariffs are already generating $billions in additional revenue so it had to do some damage control. Remember that Democrats always think of the economy as linear: tax more, receive more. How many Democrats have you heard complain about how “tax cuts will be paid for?” They fail to understand the four-dimensional complexity of global macroeconomics, economic and federal policies that affect human emotion, investor confidence, corporate strategies, etc. The Laffer Curve is lost on Democrats. Trump understands these things; he not only has a sixth sense for it, but he’s lived it his entire life. Those who have only lived in politics have no clue.
I’m trusting Trump on this one. Which makes the CBO irrelevant. Abolish it.
Image: CBO