Conspiracy Theory

Mick Mulvaney Has a Conspiracy Theory

Written by SK Ashby

White House budget director and unhinged yokel, Mick Mulvaney, has his suspicions about the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Mulvaney apparently believes the CBO's negative score of Trumpcare is a Democratic conspiracy.

“At some point, you’ve got to ask yourself, has the day of the CBO come and gone?” Mulvaney told the Washington Examiner Wednesday. “How much power do we give to the CBO under the 1974 Budget Act? We’re hearing now that the person in charge of the Affordable Health Care Act methodology is an alum of the Hillarycare program in the 1990s who was brought in by Democrats to score the ACA.”

It's true that CBO director Keith Hall worked at the Department of Human Services during the Clinton administration, but to say Democrats 'brought him in' is misleading.

Hall began working for the CBO in 2009, but he was chosen for the position of director by former Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (who is currently the secretary of Health and Human Services) and he was formally appointed by Speaker Paul Ryan. Keith Hall is also a Republican. The CBO director is a Republican and he was appointed by a Republican.

By accusing the CBO of conspiracy, Mulvaney is more or less accusing mathematics of conspiracy. And this isn't necessarily complicated math. Mulvaney said the CBO's estimate that cutting over $800 billion from Medicaid will result in massive coverage losses is "absurd," but that is the nature of physical reality, isn't it? If you take something away, you have less of it. Last time I checked, if I break off two bananas from a bushel and throw them away, I now have fewer bananas. I'm pretty sure even Chimps are capable of understanding that.

Mulvaney's office could produce its own score of Republican legislation, but he hasn't done that. I suspect that's because making Trump's policies look good would require more than just a few magic asterisks and people are going to notice if you fudge the math.

It certainly didn't go unnoticed when Mulvaney counted a $2 trillion magic asterisk twice.