Massie says the CBO director can be replaced at will by Congress. Is that true?

If so, why doesn't Johnson do that?

.@SpeakerJohnson complains CBO is scoring the deficit impact of the Big Beautiful Bill wrong.

Folks, CBO stands for Congressional Budget Office!

I reminded the Speaker yesterday that CBO works for Congress and we could fire the director right now if he is serious. #boogyman

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) June 5, 2025

Sounds good to me.

How about Massie be a leader and develop a solution and get it passed. *****ing is doing zero to get this budget problem solved. Tearing down others to benefit himself is childish and bush league.

CBO is non-partisan like your computer. It goes off of the data you give it and gives results based on your own presuppositions. It's like getting a computer model of a physical event, but you get to define all the laws of physics. That makes it only slightly less wrong than Congress itself.

Phatbob said:

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CBO is non-partisan like your computer. It goes off of the data you give it and gives results based on your own presuppositions. It's like getting a computer model of a physical event, but you get to define all the laws of physics. That makes it only slightly less wrong than Congress itself.

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So in other words, they want to change the algorithms until the program says the Big Beautiful Bill really is beneficial to the country, our financial well being, and the national debt.

I think they need to divide by zero somewhere in the algorithm to get that kind of math.

I think I posted a source on some other thread but apparently no member of the CBO staff has donated to a Republican/GOP in over 25 years. It's just another hive of the swamp one wouldn't normally think of until this year, like the "US Institute for Peace', Kennedy Center, or National Archives.

Funky Winkerbean said:

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How about Massie be a leader and develop a solution and get it passed. *****ing is doing zero to get this budget problem solved. Tearing down others to benefit himself is childish and bush league.

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Johnson says the score is wrong because of politics. Why doesn't he change the director and have it scored correctly? It's a legit question. Don't you want the correct score as far as deficit and debt?

People are upset because the spending cuts are on the backend per the CBO. So lets get it corrected if that is not the case.

Logos Stick said:

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Funky Winkerbean said:

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How about Massie be a leader and develop a solution and get it passed. *****ing is doing zero to get this budget problem solved. Tearing down others to benefit himself is childish and bush league.

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Johnson says the score is wrong because of politics. Why doesn't he change the director and have it scored correctly? It's a legit question. Don't you want the correct score as far as deficit and debt?

People are upset because the spending cuts are on the backend per the CBO. So lets get it corrected if that is not the case.

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If you flipped over the CBO and they issued a report showing that the BBB would have positive impacts, then the Dems would be screaming from the tops of the kitten claw posts about how the office is partisan and should be closed and we should instead use whatever XYZ report they have in hand.

The CBO says revenue will drop because of the tax cuts, but the opposite happened last time. It's just partisanship. I think they've been treated as a sacred 'nonpartisan' office for too long. Of course, when Dems were mad about it, they considered firing the CBO director. But republicans have to 'play nice.'

Personally, I don't think we even need a CBO, let the two sides have NGO's on 'their team' score whatever bill and just market what they want the messaging to be. It's trillions in spend, both parties can come up with an analysis on their own (and in truth, already do). The CBO is just a silly facade of objectivity, from a time that has long gone by.

flown-the-coop said:

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Logos Stick said:

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Funky Winkerbean said:

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How about Massie be a leader and develop a solution and get it passed. *****ing is doing zero to get this budget problem solved. Tearing down others to benefit himself is childish and bush league.

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Johnson says the score is wrong because of politics. Why doesn't he change the director and have it scored correctly? It's a legit question. Don't you want the correct score as far as deficit and debt?

People are upset because the spending cuts are on the backend per the CBO. So lets get it corrected if that is not the case.

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If you flipped over the CBO and they issued a report showing that the BBB would have positive impacts, then the Dems would be screaming from the tops of the kitten claw posts about how the office is partisan and should be closed and we should instead use whatever XYZ report they have in hand.

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The Dems have zero control over a reconciliation bill, so what they say is irrelevant.

Garbage in Garbage out. They feed in unrealistic data sets and parameters and they get unpredictable results. Congress, both parties, try to manipulate what the CBO will churn out by manipulating what the CBO is allowed to consider. It's pretty sad that even so they often complain when their manipulated inputs don't generate the result that supports the political narratives they are pushing.

Logos Stick said:

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The Dems have zero control over a reconciliation bill, so what they say is irrelevant.

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Only if the Rs stick together. See Rand and Massie threads regarding these prospects.

flown-the-coop said:

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Logos Stick said:

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The Dems have zero control over a reconciliation bill, so what they say is irrelevant.

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Only if the Rs stick together. See Rand and Massie threads regarding these prospects.

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They are basing their stance on the CBO. Johnson says the CBO is wrong. Johnson has the power to change that. It's on Johnson at this point.

Logos Stick said:

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flown-the-coop said:

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Logos Stick said:

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The Dems have zero control over a reconciliation bill, so what they say is irrelevant.

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Only if the Rs stick together. See Rand and Massie threads regarding these prospects.

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They are basing their stance on the CBO. Johnson says the CBO is wrong. Johnson has the power to change that. It's on Johnson at this point.

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Just to be clear over my position, I agree with others that the CBO is worthless and should be ignored. My point was that Johnson changing the folks there would literally accomplish nothing.

CBO's model is "spartan at best" as Chamath has said:

• It assumes a GDP growth rate of only 1.8%
• It treats the extension of the tax cuts as "spending"

I really wish Massie, Paul, Miller, and Elon would all sit down on a long-form pod and discuss all this.

Funky Winkerbean said:

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How about Massie be a leader and develop a solution and get it passed. *****ing is doing zero to get this budget problem solved. Tearing down others to benefit himself is childish and bush league.

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Being a leader means standing on principle. Massie is consistently spot on about government spending. The white house should've worked with him on developing the BBB. They didn't...and he is opposed to it. It's no secret what he wants.

Edit: Trump is our last, best hope for spending reform. And he has signaled to the markets that he's willing to let them/it force chaotic changes to government spending, rather than our leadership doing it in a more orderly way.

Have DOGE go through it and tell us what's really in it and what we can expect. Trusting any data being put out of any government agency is a losing proposition. They create political opportunity, not accuracy.

Sid Farkas said:

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Funky Winkerbean said:

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How about Massie be a leader and develop a solution and get it passed. *****ing is doing zero to get this budget problem solved. Tearing down others to benefit himself is childish and bush league.

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Being a leader means standing on principle. Massie is consistently spot on about government spending. The white house should've worked with him on developing the BBB. They didn't...and he is opposed to it. It's no secret what he wants.

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What managers in your world hang on to positions because of how good their ideas are? Zero. It's past time to expect results out of 13 year congressman.

Funky Winkerbean said:

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How about Massie be a leader and develop a solution and get it passed. *****ing is doing zero to get this budget problem solved. Tearing down others to benefit himself is childish and bush league.

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Massie has always been willing and tried to get involved in developing solutions but he speaks the truth and actually stands by his principles. He's probably the smartest guy in the House with 2 Degrees from MIT. If your colleagues don't want to listen to you and the President does all he can to tear you down and discourage anyone from working with you though it's pretty damn hard. The reality is the worst RINOs have the ear of Trump far more than guys like Massie.

The right-leaning Tax Foundation has it increasing the debt and they supported TCJA in 2017. Johnson can complain all he wants, but it's a bad bill.

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Our preliminary analysis finds the tax provisions included in the House-passed bill would increase long-run GDP by 0.8 percent. The bill's tax and spending changes would increase the 10-year budget deficit by $2.6 trillion from 2025 through 2034 on a conventional basis before added interest costs. On a dynamic basis, accounting for economic growth, the deficit would increase by $1.7 trillion over ten years before interest costs.

The bill's tax provisions alone would reduce federal tax revenue by $4.1 trillion from 2025 through 2034 on a conventional basis before added interest costs. On a dynamic basis, accounting for economic growth, the revenue reduction would fall by nearly 22 percent to $3.2 trillion over 10 years before added interest costs.

Overall, the bill would prevent tax increases on 62 percent of taxpayers that would occur if the TCJA expired as scheduled. However, by introducing narrowly targeted new provisions and sunsetting the most pro-growth provisions, like bonus depreciation and research and development (R&D) expensing, it leaves economic growth on the table and complicates the structure of the tax code.

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Johnson can complain all he wants, but it's a bad bill.

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The alternative is worse.

Funky Winkerbean said:

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Sid Farkas said:

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Funky Winkerbean said:

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How about Massie be a leader and develop a solution and get it passed. *****ing is doing zero to get this budget problem solved. Tearing down others to benefit himself is childish and bush league.

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Being a leader means standing on principle. Massie is consistently spot on about government spending. The white house should've worked with him on developing the BBB. They didn't...and he is opposed to it. It's no secret what he wants.

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What managers in your world hang on to positions because of how good their ideas are? Zero. It's past time to expect results out of 13 year congressman.

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he's 1/435th of the House and my fellow Republicans, unlike Massie, just talk the talk about government inertia. They ignore him. He his wields his small bully pulpit and meager single vote. What else is there to do? Go Independant?

Funky Winkerbean said:

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Sid Farkas said:

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Funky Winkerbean said:

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How about Massie be a leader and develop a solution and get it passed. *****ing is doing zero to get this budget problem solved. Tearing down others to benefit himself is childish and bush league.

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Being a leader means standing on principle. Massie is consistently spot on about government spending. The white house should've worked with him on developing the BBB. They didn't...and he is opposed to it. It's no secret what he wants.

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What managers in your world hang on to positions because of how good their ideas are? Zero. It's past time to expect results out of 13 year congressman.

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Do you understand how Congress works? A Congressman has 1 vote. Massie makes strong arguments and speaks rationally. He isn't like Bernie just proposing complete pie in the sky impossible solutions and raising money off of it. He would love to be in that room going line by line on budget items and helping to find smart ways to make reductions and spend money but they won't let him in the rooms that matter.

This thread is actually a perfect example btw. Massie rightly points out that Johnson can fire the head of the CBO and replace him. That's a constructive solution to the problem. Yet Johnson ignores that advice and attacks Massie and gets folks like you to pile on instead of addressing why he won't just fire the guy. The reality is he won't because he is afraid to and by not doing so it gives him something he can complain about.

Massie actually wants to solve problems but he's honest about what the problems are. Now you may not agree with his solutions and that's fine but he has many solutions both big and small that would make a real difference. It's staggering to me how Trump attacks him harder than anyone else in the GOP in the House yet then tries to claim he supports the same issues.

Funky Winkerbean said:

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How about Massie be a leader and develop a solution and get it passed. *****ing is doing zero to get this budget problem solved. Tearing down others to benefit himself is childish and bush league.

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Funky wants his unfunded tax cuts and big gov't spending so his boy can say he scored a W. Sorry pal. The holdouts here are the only people attempting to save America. What happened to the "take our medicine" posts from the fall and winter?

Trump can still get the win signing a much more responsible bill than this utter piece of garbage.

One of the bigger points of confusion on the BBB is spending vs tax cuts.

The lefty CBO says extending the 2017 tax cuts (preventing their expiration) increases the deficit.

Some critics have seen this figure and claimed or implied the bill increases *spending.*

Even according…

— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) June 4, 2025

The one wrinkle of reconciliation is you can’t make “discretionary cuts” (eg the bureaucracy) just mandatory (eg food stamp reform).

Discretionary cuts happen through a separate process known as “rescissions” (also 50 votes).

BBB was designed by President Trump and his allies…

— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) June 4, 2025

aggiedent said:

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Phatbob said:

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CBO is non-partisan like your computer. It goes off of the data you give it and gives results based on your own presuppositions. It's like getting a computer model of a physical event, but you get to define all the laws of physics. That makes it only slightly less wrong than Congress itself.

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So in other words, they want to change the algorithms until the program says the Big Beautiful Bill really is beneficial to the country, our financial well being, and the national debt.

I think they need to divide by zero somewhere in the algorithm to get that kind of math.

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Yes.

CBO grades things with variables given to them by the proponents of a bill/program.

The stupidly named bill is horrible and Johnson, et. al. Should feel bad.

Just cut spending, deregulate and cut taxes. Supposedly "we" are in power. Too bad "we" don't have my leadership.

LMFAO at this comment:

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Certain libertarians in Congress, who are not MAGA, have their own agenda…and it's not yours.

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Sorry Stephen, they appear to be the only ones let who are MAGA. This president and this bill certainly isn't.

Oh no time to undermine another fact based institution because it doesn't align with our alternate facts reality!

Maga continuously sows doubt at every opportunity, for literally everything, so they always have an "out" for their stupidity.

Bunk Moreland said:

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LMFAO at this comment:

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Certain libertarians in Congress, who are not MAGA, have their own agenda…and it's not yours.

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Sorry Stephen, they appear to be the only ones let who are MAGA. This president and this bill certainly isn't.

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MAGA to him isn't a set of ideals. It's whatever Trump says on that particular day. Then you just logically try to back into that the best you can.

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The right-leaning Tax Foundation has it increasing the debt and they supported TCJA in 2017.

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Bro, why do you gotta harsh the mellow with inconvenient facts like this?

TDS is strong with this one, amirite?

webgem08 said:

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CBO's model is "spartan at best" as Chamath has said:

• It assumes a GDP growth rate of only 1.8%
• It treats the extension of the tax cuts as "spending"

I really wish Massie, Paul, Miller, and Elon would all sit down on a long-form pod and discuss all this.

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Speaking of assumptions, aren't they also assuming an interest rate on the debt going forward of mid 3's? Where are they getting that from?

Jet White said:

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webgem08 said:

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CBO's model is "spartan at best" as Chamath has said:

• It assumes a GDP growth rate of only 1.8%
• It treats the extension of the tax cuts as "spending"

I really wish Massie, Paul, Miller, and Elon would all sit down on a long-form pod and discuss all this.

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Speaking of assumptions, aren't they also assuming an interest rate on the debt going forward of mid 3's? Where are they getting that from?

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Their ass, like this ****ty bill.

aggie93 said:

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Funky Winkerbean said:

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How about Massie be a leader and develop a solution and get it passed. *****ing is doing zero to get this budget problem solved. Tearing down others to benefit himself is childish and bush league.

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Massie has always been willing and tried to get involved in developing solutions but he speaks the truth and actually stands by his principles. He's probably the smartest guy in the House with 2 Degrees from MIT. If your colleagues don't want to listen to you and the President does all he can to tear you down and discourage anyone from working with you though it's pretty damn hard. The reality is the worst RINOs have the ear of Trump far more than guys like Massie.

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I'm not arguing his ideas or his intelligence as they are solid. But it's time to produce. He has to move himself off of his all or nothing stance, and focus on areas he can be effective. Over a 13 year career, the cumulative effect would have been significant. As constituents, we have to expect results. Are you planning on letting Trump slide with good ideas or do you expect results? Why don't we treat all politicians like that?

Funky Winkerbean said:

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aggie93 said:

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Funky Winkerbean said:

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How about Massie be a leader and develop a solution and get it passed. *****ing is doing zero to get this budget problem solved. Tearing down others to benefit himself is childish and bush league.

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Massie has always been willing and tried to get involved in developing solutions but he speaks the truth and actually stands by his principles. He's probably the smartest guy in the House with 2 Degrees from MIT. If your colleagues don't want to listen to you and the President does all he can to tear you down and discourage anyone from working with you though it's pretty damn hard. The reality is the worst RINOs have the ear of Trump far more than guys like Massie.

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I'm not arguing his ideas or his intelligence as they are solid. But it's time to produce. He has to move himself off of his all or nothing stance, and focus on areas he can be effective. Over a 13 year career, the cumulative effect would have been significant. As constituents, we have to expect results. Are you planning on letting Trump slide with good ideas or do you expect results? Why don't we treat all politicians like that?

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Explain how his stance is "all or nothing". Specifically.