The White House and President Joe Biden have turned on the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office when it exposed the cost of the Build Back Better Act, including press secretary Jen Psaki calling its latest scoring "fake."
But, Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said on Newsmax, the only thing "fake" is the White House, Psaki, and Democrats lying to the American people about the "zero" cost of their progressive spending plan.
"It doesn't fit their narrative," Sessions told "Saturday Report" of the hypocrisy of now blasting the CBO after years of praising it when it suited Democrats. "The president and the Secretary Treasurer [Janet] Yellen want to say that this is completely paid for.
"How can you say it is completely paid for when the CBO score is $3 trillion different? And the bottom line is that's what they want. So they're hoping that the people who hear on their stations hear what they hear; and the people that are on conservative stations then know the truth. That creates division within our country."
Democrats attempted to fit their original $6 trillion budget reconciliation package into a $1.7 trillion framework by suggesting the social programs would expire in a few years, but the CBO score reflected the cost of those programs without a guarantee they expire, exposing the budgetary tricks of Democrats to get their bill approved by skeptical moderates like Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.
"They need to look inside their own request of what they asked CBO to look at," Sessions told host Carl Higbie. "And these programs that they're talking about are not only made permanent, but they go deep into providing goods and services that are done by the free enterprise system today. And so when you look at what the government would be paying for versus what would be taken away from the enterprise system, it reminds me a lot of student loans.
"The Democrats under Barack Obama came in and out virtually outlawed – and took from free enterprise – student loans," Sessions continued. "And what they did is they then moved it to student loans and then moved the rate of interest way up to pay for what they did, and now they're talking about how much money it's costing these students.
"They remind me of an arsonist who turns into a firefighter. They remind me of someone who creates the problem and then either gives it away for free or they complain about it and then want it fixed."
Psaki's calling out the "fake CBO score" is rich after former President Donald Trump did the same thing during his administration and Democrats scoffed, Sessions noted.
"What where you're talking about here is a fake CBO score that is not based on the actual bill that anybody is voting on," Psaki told reporters during a White House press briefing this week.
But, Biden has a long history of praise for that very CBO he used to use to push Obama-era spending programs.
"The CBO, which is really a you know, as you know, the gold standard no Republican or Democrat questions," Biden once claimed in a clip shown on "Saturday Report."
In another clip, Biden added: "The only thing Democrats and Republicans agree on is the objectivity of CBO. We all quote their numbers, and we quote them even when they don't agree with what we wanted to do, because they are bipartisan. They are responsible."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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