So I was watching Fox News Sunday. They had Romney advisor Ed Gillespie on. Gillespie is one of the better communicators the Republicans have. When Chris Wallace asked Gillespie about Ryan’s Medicare reform plan and how the CBO estimated that this would cost the average senior $6,400, Gillespie fumbled by trying to explain the change wouldn’t apply to current seniors or those 55 and older, that seniors would benefit from competition, etc. Gillespie could have used the opportunity to explain that, under the 2012 Ryan plan (which is also the Romney plan more or less), there would be competitive bidding for a defined benefit, that the premium support would cover the defined benefit (that wasn’t necessarily true in Ryan’s 2011 budget), that older and sicker seniors would get higher premium support payments and that traditional Medicare FFS would remain an option for seniors.
This isn’t to pick on Gillespie. Most Republicans (and the center-right in general) have not been talking about specific Medicare reforms for very long, and most are not very good at it yet. Tell Gillespie to go out there and defend cuts to marginal income tax rates or cuts to the capital gains tax and he will do much better. He has had a lot more practice at that sort of thing. The average (or even above average) Romney campaign flak is not going to do a good job of explaining Romney’s Medicare proposal. That is why the Romney campaign should put Ryan in the position of explaining (at something like length) how the Ryan-Wyden-style premium support plan that is at the heart of both Ryan’s 2012 budget and Romney’s Medicare reform plan would work. This would give viewers a better, more sympathetic, and more complete understanding of Romney’s Medicare plan than they will get from anyone else. And as more people on the center-right see Ryan’s talk about Medicare, they will pick up Ryan’s talking points and learn to speak more effectively. There is a lot to be gained from putting Ryan in two minute ads to explain his current premium support plan.
August 19th, 2012 | 7:17 pm
From what I’ve heard, CBO projections are usually not very reliable and are pretty partisan-influenced, so much so that even Congressmen go with OMB projections over CBO projections if they have them. I don’t know whether the OMB has run a projection on Ryan’s Medicare reform plan, but either way I think it would be worth the Republicans’ while to drill down into the specifics and numbers of the CBO report and see if they make sense or not.
August 19th, 2012 | 9:33 pm
CJ, the CBO score was very arguably problematic as it assumed government savings under competitive bid premium support would come through cost shifting. As a study I’ve linked to shows, that assumption is problematic and likely mistaken. But there is no cost shifting at all under Ryan’s 2012 plan (it is defined benefit), so the CBO’s cost shifting score for his 2011 plan is irrelevant. Gillespie might still have mentioned that study to show how competitive bidding could save the government considerable money while maintaining health care services for seniors. He just didn’t have the info at his fingertips and arguing the issue isn’t second nature. The broad center-right is trying to learn how to talk the issue and it is a learning process.
http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/313243/new-estimate-potential-impact-competitive-bidding-medicare-expenditures-reihan-salam
August 19th, 2012 | 10:23 pm
CJ, Paul Ryan asked the CBO for their analysis of his plan. And when he spoke, prior to being named to the ticket, it was with enthusiasm for a plan which only resonates with the tea party and surely many of the rich.
Now he is so far being kept away from media interviews, save Faux. Instead, republican pundits are taking flak in interviews and coming up with poor responses to good questions. This plan has been out for months. Its content is widely known by the media. And unlike many would have us believe, it is the 2012 plan that is being put on trial, not the 2011plan.
People like Pete are upset with republican pundits for not mastering the talk, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is that the plan will not sell to the American people, and even republican pundits know that.
August 19th, 2012 | 10:38 pm
That seems wrong CJ. What follows is largely my guess/opinion as to why that seems wrong.
CBO projections are usually not that reliable for bills that are not yet law. CBO projections out to 2080 are basically garbage.
But the CBO has a clear deficit cutting bias/mandate. Some of its mandate forces it to make rather garbage projections(answer unanswerable questions) The CBO has to answer any question from any congressman. If a congressman asks for something to be scored by the CBO (and it is even remotely likely of becomming law…and even if it isn’t, they indulge Ron Paul all the time) the CBO has to score it.
But the OMB doesn’t answer to congress(at least not in the same way…they have a duty of loyalty to the executive branch.) So it seems unlikely that the OMB would score Ryan’s proposals even if asked (unless as private work product for the president, in which case it wouldn’t be released/declassified.) Out of proffesional ethics, most folks working at the OMB would recognize the partisan/duty of loyalty complications with working for Obama and scoring Ryan’s proposals.
That said the OMB is more partisan. It sort of has to be because it is essentially the executive branch. (some stuff which is rhetorically placed upon Obama, happens here). Especially since recently it has been a sort of launching pad for bigger careers.
Big names from OMB include Leon Panneta, Mitch Daniels, Rob Portman. Also Raines(under Clinton) who was CEO of Fannie Mae and got out early (before the crash) because of pressure from regulators. (In truth if you paid attention to these regulators you might have seen the housing bubble comming).
Cass Sunstein is at the OMB currently.
Appart from really difficult projections such as Mitch Daniels involving the cost of the Iraq War…in general the OMB is more accurate because the OMB is dealing with law/spending at a level that is much more precise. Notice that the OMB gets to score budgets with more facts from the administrative agencies. OMB projections are thus almost always much closer in time, and some components of OMB projections are actually already known(the main difficulty would be security clearance). It is like asking me what will pay for lunch when I am looking at the menu right before I order, If I know the value menu choice and can do the tax in my head, my projection is spot on.
The OMB has a lot of advantages in terms of “ripeness”. In addition a lot of what the OMB does is co-ordinating the administrations procurement. But basically the OMB has both a managerial function and a budgetary one. So in a lot of situations the CBO is doing more long run hypothetical projections, while the OMB is sort of doing projections where it has some kind of control (sort of like a line supervisor in a factory, projecting total production for a particular day…in some cases they can make the projection and work the overtime to zero in perfectly). The OMB like the president of the United States is more or less tasked with spending what Congress says it can.
In anycase the CBO is Paul Ryan’s friend (they answer to him). Also the deficit hawks can’t exactly sell those deficit charts that is CBO work product while badmouthing the CBO. The OMB is appointed by Obama with the “advice and consent” of the Senate, and they tend to be partisan extensions of the President (if Mitch Daniels screws something up…in the popular press George Bush will take heat for it.)
But the OMB because it actually executes the law, i.e. makes the purchases procurements and deals financially/directly with all the administrative agencies… it is just going to be more accurate. lt has all the advantages of ripeness. The OMB is better in the same sense that Nanci Pelosi intended the statement, in regards the ACA “in order to know what is in it we have to pass it”.
The CBO is a more challenging position, because it really has to look out into the future, into a context in which things are not ripe, and the moving parts are unknown or not at the control of those doing the projections, because they do not also happen to have administrative/procurement functions.
In terms of pure projection/forecasting as an art the CBO is where it is at and the OMB is sort of cheating.
But you would be an idiot to stick with CBO estimates if you had OMB “estimates” on the same question. In a different context OMB style “estimates” might even get you in trouble for insider trading…
August 20th, 2012 | 2:05 am
Need. Better. Plan.
The Ryan Medicare plan has been roundly dismissed by the AARP.
There’s a reason Ed Gillespie had trouble defending Ryan’s plan: he knows the plan will force millions of future seniors to fork over $6,000 bucks.
August 20th, 2012 | 7:42 am
Daniel, “And when he spoke, prior to being named to the ticket, it was with enthusiasm for a plan which only resonates with the tea party and surely many of the rich.” So I suppose that “many of the rich” prefer a Medicare plan that is more downwardly redistributive by extending means-testing for high income seniors and including supplemental payments for low income seniors. Well, it is a theory I guess.
“The problem is that the plan will not sell to the American people” I see no reason why Medicare budget plan that has a global budget cap of GDP+.5% and is based around premium support should do better than one that spends the same amount and is based on centralized rationing. That would be an election worth having.
Ellana “The Ryan Medicare plan has been roundly dismissed by the AARP.” If you’re counting on the AARP to have a veto over entitlement reform, sell your bonds. Also, their endorsement of Obamacare didn’t seem to help the Democrats in 2010.
August 20th, 2012 | 8:16 am
Pete, thanks for sharing that NRO article, that’s the kind of info I wish Gillespie would have shared too.
John, thanks for correcting and adding much needed nuance to my generalization about CBO and OMB projections. I agree with everything you say, but would add that there are different functionaries within OMB that by the nature of their offices are more neutral or partisan to the Presidents they work under. Most of the number crunchers who would work on budget projections are career guys who stay on with every new presidency. On the the hand the OIRA branch of OMB, which is the part that Cass Sunstein headed for a time, has a more partisan function
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