President Joe Biden reacted to the bad news from the Congressional Budget Office on his massive spending bill by twisting the numbers, and many on social media ripped into the missive.
“My Build Back Better Act is going to reduce the deficit by more than $100 billion over ten years. It’s going to lower costs, create jobs, and rebuild our economy. Let’s get this done,” Biden tweeted from his official social media account.
However, the link in the tweet to the CBO estimate didn’t quite match with the Biden estimate.
“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 report read.
Biden’s estimate appeared to reject the CBO finding that increased tax revenue through greater IRS enforcement would only amount to about $207 billion, not the $400 billion the White House estimated.
White House Deputy Communications Director Kate Berner explained on Twitter how they came to that conclusion.
“How did we reach this? CBO estimates that BBB will add $367.1B to the deficit. That doesn’t include revenue collected from tax enforcement. Treasury estimates $479.6 revenue from tax enforcement. So… $112.5B in deficit reduction,” she tweeted.
The shady accounting was quickly rejected by many on social media.
“Gutsy move to link to the very CBO document that refutes his exact claim. Math is hard,” responded House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
“He lied about evacuating Americans from Afghanistan. Now President Biden is lying about the cost of his reckless spending plan. His word is no good,” replied Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)
“This is Biden plugging in his admin’s own IRS enforcement numbers to the CBO’s analysis of the bill. (The linked doc does NOT say BBB would reduce the deficit),” tweeted journalist Jim Tankersley.
“I’m trying to decide if Biden doesn’t realize that the CBO says that’s BS — or if he’s somehow trying to debate them,” said one detractor.
“Did he… click the link?” asked one critic.
Moderate Democrats said that they would only decide on their vote for Biden’s spending plan if the results of the CBO scoring matched up with the estimates of the White House.
Here’s more about the CBO rating:
Moderate Dems insist on CBO score of Biden’s reconciliation bill www.youtube.com