Quote :

"Thanks to a surge in benefits and a collapse in paychecks, this plunge into the red comes 6 years faster than the most recent CBO estimate predicted (It had been 2016)."

http://www.businessinsider.com/social-security-goes-bust-2010-3

3/26/2010 1:21:12 PM

It's a fucking estimate. Get over it.

3/26/2010 2:11:41 PM

We're tracking the credibility of a non-partisan office? Seriously?

[Edited on March 26, 2010 at 2:12 PM. Reason : grah, thanks tww]

3/26/2010 2:12:11 PM

The best thing to do is just ignore the looming crisis. The government will take care of us. Everything is going to be fine.

3/26/2010 2:17:14 PM

Just because they are bipartisan, doesn't make them credible. Everyone around here seems to take their "estimates" as the word of God when it comes to health care.

3/26/2010 3:13:26 PM

The CBO can only make estimates based on the information provided to the CBO. Therein lies the dubious nature of the credibility of CBO estimates. It is not that the CBO is incompetent or evil or that the organization itself is run by incredulous individuals, it is just that if Congress says, per a given bill, that pigs will fly, the CBO has to assume pigs will fly.

3/26/2010 3:35:47 PM

So, the main point of your thread to find things that CBO gets wrong, and then paint them as uniformly wrong with their estimates.

3/26/2010 3:41:03 PM

No, they just arent credible. They get more things wrong, than they get right.

3/26/2010 3:44:33 PM

Are you familiar with the concept of making estimates?

3/26/2010 3:46:05 PM

Yes I subscribe to the ideas of estimates. However the CBO's estimates are like pulling a number from a hat. That is not estimating.

3/26/2010 3:47:27 PM

News flash: most predictions turn out to be wrong.

The CBO does the best they can with what they have, usually under severe time pressure.

I look at it this way. We can either evaluate legislation using no information at all or information the non-partisan, but also imperfect CBO. If the choice is between imperfect information and no information, I will pick imperfect every time.

3/26/2010 4:48:53 PM

Quote :

"Just because they are bipartisan, doesn't make them credible. Everyone around here seems to take their "estimates" as the word of God when it comes to health care."

.. and for several months, they were saying previous iterations of the plan WOULDN'T save any money. I'm sure you felt compelled to make this thread then too...?

3/26/2010 5:03:46 PM

^^ the whole point is that they are always given shitty information. so they always come up with shitty estimates that are used to sell shitty bills. any agency that doesn't bat a fucking eye when someone says they are gonna pay for 6, tax for 10, aint worth the toilet paper they wipe their ass with.

3/26/2010 7:36:24 PM

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/11/cbo-doubles-some-health-care-spending-estimates/ Still not credible.

5/13/2010 3:46:15 PM