The 411 on the Congressional Budget Office

Democrats now control everything in Washington, and so it's not surprising that Republicans have appeared to be on the sidelines when it comes to stopping or slowing liberal legislation.

What is surprising, however, is that the Obama administration's greatest obstacle has been Douglas Elmendorf, the bespectacled director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Having already dealt several blows to Democratic health care proposals, most recently, the CBO reported the Dems' health care bill would increase the federal deficit by $239 billion over the next decade.

While the CBO is playing a major role in legislation, few Americans actually know what it is.

Founded in 1974 and actually begun in February of 1975, the CBO is a congressonal watchdog. The organization serves to provide economic forecasting, scorekeeping, policy analysis on fiscal matters, cost projections, as well as a yearly report on the federal budget.

According to its Web site, the CBO provides an "objective, nonpartisan, and timely analyses to aid in economic and budgetary decisions on the wide array of programs covered by the federal budget and the information and estimates required for the Congressional budget process."

The CBO director is appointed jointly by the House speaker and the Senate pro tempore, though either house of Congress can remove him with a resolution. Economist Alice M. Rivlin was the founding director of the CBO. Current director Elmendorf was a Brookings senior fellow from 2007 to 2009. His four year term is set to expire on January 3, 2011 (though he could be appointed to another term).

Ironically, Elmendorf's predecessor is Peter Orszag (also from Brookings), who now serves as director of the Offiice of Management and Budget for the Obama administration. Orszag appared on Fox News Sunday to defend the administration regarding the CBO scoring.

While many liberals and Democrats complain the CBO's scoring has been misleading (they argue it does not consider the savings from prevention and wellness that would be gained), other liberals are making a more interesting argument -- they are praising the CBO scoring (which everyone else in the world read as a rebuke of the Democratic plan) for actually helping confirm the health care reform bill is "deficit neutral." The reason: the bill aims to "fix" the cost of an annual shortfall _ $245 billion in Medicare payments to physicians _ by removing the obligation from the federal deficit under accounting rules proposed in separate pending legislation. The CBO acknowledges that removing this item would actually produce a surplus of $6 billion, but said it would not account for it until the legislation is approved.

One Democrat, however, is standing up for the organization. Monday on MSNBC, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota defended the organization, saying, "We can all question CBO scoring. There are things I don't agree with. . . but at the end of the day we have got to have an objective scorekeeper."