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July 23, 2009
Obama bullies CBO chief the Chicago Way
Rick Moran
This is a story that was broken by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air and has now hit the MSM - without crediting Morrissey or Hot Air which is typical behavior for the lazy reporters at most news outlets.
After CBO chief Doug Elmendorf told Congress that passing Obamacare would add substantially to the federal deficit over the next ten years - unwelcome news for Obama who has watched Dems in Congress begin to get cold feet over his health care reform - the president "invited" (ordered?) Elmendorf to a meeting at the White House.
Understand that the Congressional Budget Office is answerable to Congress, not the White House. But this didn't seem to matter to our Chicago Machine president who apparently had some words with the CBO chief about playing ball and not rocking the boat.
A Wall Street Journal opinion piece explains:
Writing on his blog after news of the meeting became public, Mr. Elmendorf diplomatically noted that "The President asked me and outside experts for our views about achieving cost savings in health reform." No doubt he did. But Mr. Elmendorf, a Democrat, will also have received the message that continuing apostasy will not be good for his future political career.
As Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the Republican who ran CBO from 2003 to 2005, put it, "The only appearance could be that they're leaning on him. CBO was created for Congress, for independent analysis. The White House did him [Elmendorf] a terrible disservice." On second thought, perhaps we're being unfair to LBJ, whose method was a combination of muscle and flattery. Mr. Obama learned his methods in Chicago.
I don't care who you are in Washington, being summoned to the White House is intimidating in and of itself. We might wonder what the next report coming out of the CBO will tell us when the Democrats finally get their act together and come up with a final bill.
It will probably have White House fingerprints all over it.
Hat Tip: Ed Lasky
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