Below The Beltway

As I noted last night, the Congressional Budget Office released a new report calling into doubt the Administration’s claims about the savings that would be realized from it’s health care reform package.

Today, the partisan White House came out swinging against the non-partisan CBO:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The White House has criticized the Congressional Budget Office’s findings that the Obama administration’s proposal to control Medicare costs would yield a moderate savings of $2 billion over the next decade.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said the CBO’s analysis — which it relayed to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Saturday — could feed a perception of the office’s bias toward “exaggerating costs and underestimating savings.”

“The point of the proposal … was never to generate savings over the next decade,” Orszag said in a letter posted on Saturday.

“Instead the goal is to provide a mechanism for improving quality of care for beneficiaries and reducing costs over the long term.”

How long might that “long term” be ? You’re guess is as good as mine.

More important, though, is the fact that this isn’t the first time that the Obama Administration has taken the CBO to task for not falling into line on health care reform:

Obama called Elmendorf to the White House after the CBO director testified that the present House bill would add $239 billion to the deficit over the next ten years, creating a rift between moderate and liberal Democrats in the House and abruptly halting the effort in the Senate.  Obama denied that he intended to intimidate Elmendorf into providing more sympathetic numbers in subsequent analyses, but the White House got roundly criticized for inappropriately interfering with Congress’ independence in fiscal analysis.

Now, however, the White House has dispensed with the illusion of bullying and made it as overt as possible.  This makes the intent of the earlier meeting crystal clear.  They had hoped to intimidate Elmendorf in private, and since that didn’t work, they’re now doing it openly.

Obviously, the Administration doesn’t tolerate dissent very well.