Washington, D.C.–(ENEWSPF)– A February 17 Washington Times editorial falsely claimed that “[t]he nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the full cost of [the economic recovery] bill, including its $348 billion debt service and the out-year financing, will reach $3.2 trillion by 2019.” In fact, more than half of that $3.2 trillion figure comes from the cost of permanently extending more than 20 provisions in the recovery bill, which the bill does not do. CBO did not include those costs in its cost estimate of the bill; rather, in his response to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), who requested that CBO estimate the cost of permanently extending those provisions, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf noted: “As specified in H.R. 1 as passed, those provisions would either explicitly expire or would specify appropriations only for a limited number of years (usually 2009 and 2010).”
