TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

The CBO just released data showing separately showing how much the Democrats’ healthcare reform will increase entitlement spending, and how much the bill will increase taxes.

They estimate that over the next decade, entitlement spending will increase by $401 billion and taxes will increase by $525 billion.

I (and many others) dispute these numbers, but that’s not the issue here. During debate on the healthcare bill, the CBO refused to break out this information. Instead, they combined the two together and only showed their estimate of the net effect of the healthcare bill.

Keith Hennessey nicely explained today why this is so misleading:

This is a very different picture. Imagine two scenarios of a lawmaker who was on the fence last March. He or she is a Blue Dog Democrat, or a Democrat from a fiscally conservative red district, and is deeply concerned that the legislation may be fiscally responsible. He is presented with two different statements from CBO:

1. “CBO says these bills will reduce the budget deficit by $124 billion over the next decade.”
2. “CBO says these bills will increase federal entitlement spending by $401 billion over the next decade, and will increase taxes by $525 billion over that same time period, for a net deficit reduction of $124 billion.”

Both are accurate re-statements of their estimates, but the second, more illuminating statement, presents a much different picture than the first. The first statement just says the bill will reduce the deficit (free lunch!), while the second says we are significantly increasing our (already disastrously high) entitlement spending, and substantially increasing taxes.

They had this data during the spring and didn’t present it to us when it would actually be useful. They left out useful information. Hennessey continues,

CBO should not bury this information in a parenthetical in their mid-summer update, five months after the legislation was considered by Congress. It should have been part of the official scores presented to Congress before they voted. If you compare the final scoring of the stimulus law, the tables clearly separate out spending, revenues, and deficit effects.

Based on CBO’s normal scoring practices and the intense scrutiny of both CBO and this legislation, this cannot possibly have been an oversight. I would bet heavily that CBO was pressured not to show this information.