Who Did Obama Bully Today? Douglas Elmendorf, Congressional Budget Office Chief

For the second time, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has dealt a blow to Obamacare. Their analysis of a White House/Congressional proposal to give an independent panel the power to keep Medicare spending in check, reported the panel idea would save a measly $2 billion over 10 years. Its not often one can call $2 billion measly, however the term is appropriate when its an offset to help pay for a $1-1.6 trillion Obamacare bill.

In mid-July CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose "the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount." Though President Obama and Democratic leaders had constantly said that controlling the skyrocketing growth in spending on government health programs such as Medicaid and Medicare is their top priority, the reform measures put forth so far would not fulfill their pledge to "bend the cost curve" downward, Elmendorf said. Instead, he said, "The curve is being raised."

Apparently the White House is not a big fan of the truth, today the President sent his own top-bean-counter,White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, to appear on CNN and beat up on the CBO:

Orszag, a former director of the CBO, pointed out that "it is very rare for CBO to conclude that a specific legislative proposal would generate significant long-term savings so it is noteworthy that, with some modifications, CBO reached such a conclusion with regard to the IMAC (Independent Medicare Advisory Council concept."

Then he basically accused the CBO of fabricating the analysis, and made a subtle warning about hurting its reputation:

"As a former CBO director, I can attest that CBO is sometimes accused of a bias toward exaggerating costs and underestimating savings. Unfortunately, parts of today's analysis from CBO could feed that perception," Orszag said.

"In providing a quantitative estimate of long-term effects without any analytical basis for doing so, CBO seems to have overstepped."

Getting attacked by his own party's administration, solely for having pride in his work and doing the right thing, CBO Head Douglas Elmendorf, is Who Obama is Bullying today.