Congressman blasts CBO over faulty cost estimates: ‘You can’t rely on anything they say’

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., is criticizing the Congressional Budget Office for inaccurate estimates regarding the cost of the Inflation Reduction Act, saying it is eroding trust in future estimates the agency gives.

"This is an example of how the CBO, you can't really rely on anything that they say," Burlison told the John Solomon Reports podcast. "Anybody that's reputable knows the real cost of this, and so we've got to do something."

When Congress passed the IRA, the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation predicted the bill would cost about $370 billion. Goldman Sachs later released an analysis that estimated the IRA’s 10-year cost would be $1.2 trillion, according to the CATO Institute.

Next week, Burlison and Wisconsin GOP Rep. Glenn Grothman will hold a hearing on how the Inflation Reduction Act negatively impacted American businesses and increased environmental spending to a large degree. 

"The IRA politicized spending to fund the partisan 'Green New Deal' and subsidized the 'green' energy purchases of wealthy households, while the Biden Administration overlooked waste, fraud, and abuse in funding streams to left-wing groups," the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

The hearing, titled “Mandates, Meddling, and Mismanagement: The IRA’s Threat to Energy and Medicine” will be held on May 20. 

The Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law in August 2022, received backlash from GOP lawmakers who alleged the legislation was filled with demands that had nothing to do with bringing inflation down. 

The act contained $740 billion, with $80 billion going to expand the IRS, had more taxes on corporations to invest in climate change and health care, and had people enrolled in the Affordable Care Act plan receive more financial assistance.

In 2023, then-President Joe Biden acknowledged at a campaign event that the bill didn't do a lot to bring inflation down.

Burlison said  the legislation has caused a multitude of problems for Americans. 

"We have a situation," he said. "If it was working, our manufacturers wouldn't be screaming about the lack of electricity. That's the evidence right there. It's clearly not working."

Burlison said that the Republican Party could face a revival of the Tea Party movement if the GOP doesn't start cutting spending as they promised during the 2024 campaign.

"It's never not a time for a Tea Party revival," he said. "The more that we can get people to give encouragement or give a spine to their members of Congress, the better."