Gingrich: ‘Corrupt’ CBO should be abolished

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) slammed the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) scoring of Republican healthcare legislation, calling it “disgustingly wrong” and recommending that the office be abolished. 

“They should abolish the Congressional Budget Office. It is corrupt. It is dishonest. It was totally wrong on ObamaCare by huge, huge margins,” Gingrich said to Fox’s Martha MacCallum on “The First 100 Days.

“I don’t trust a single word they have published, and I don’t believe them.” 

MacCallum pushed back at Gingrich, noting that the office’s director, Keith Hall, was appointed by congressional Republicans.

{mosads}”People maybe misjudge what they’re supposed to do,” MacCallum said. “Their job is to figure out whether or not this is something that can get through on reconciliation, right? Not to make a judgment about the whole bill.”

In response, Gingrich drew on his own experiences in the 1990s as Speaker.

“No. Let me be very clear. I helped balance the budget four straight times, the only time in your lifetime,” he said. “We fought the Congressional Budget Office every time.”

“When ObameCare came out, they used the architect of ObamaCare as their adviser on how to score ObamaCare. And their score, you go back and look at it, it is totally dishonest, disgustingly wrong, and that whole thing should be abolished.” 

Gingrich suggested a replacement for the CBO by “putting out to bid and having three to five professional firms score these things.” 

“Nobody has an exact score, it’s not possible,” he said, adding, “there are whole sections of this bill they haven’t scored.” 

The CBO on Monday projected that the number of uninsured people would grow by 14 million in 2018 under the Republicans’ bill, known as the American Health Care Act, with that number rising to 24 million by 2026.