During a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Newt Gingrich made some surprising comments about the professional analysts whose data he once relied upon as Speaker of the House.
CNN Money reports the presidential hopeful described the Congressional Budget Office as “a reactionary socialist institution which does not believe in economic growth, does not believe in innovation and does not believe in data that it has not internally generated.”
The Wall Street Journal reports Gingrich “called for dismantling” the institution.
The CBO is Congress’ in-house think tank, and provides elected representatives with policy analyses, cost estimates and budget projections to help inform their legislative decisions. The agency provides Congress with “objective, nonpartisan, and timely analyses to aid in economic and budgetary decisions on the wide array of programs covered by the federal budget,” and is generally considered to be politically neutral.
Republican and former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin told CNN Money that Gingrich’s allegations were “ludicrous.”
“I think if you parse that phrase carefully, he got one out of three right. I do agree it is an institution. If you’re playing baseball, that’s a decent batting average,” he added.
Former House Speaker Gingrich has surged in the polls lately by appealing to the voters that have become disenchanted with Rick Perry and Herman Cain’s respective flubs, gaffes and non-sequiturs. Gingrich, who once contracted with Freddie Mac and supported individual health insurance mandates, has reversed many of his positions to appeal to his right-wing primary voting base.
Gingrich’s comments puzzled former CBO acting director Donald Marron, who tweeted, “I thought reactionaries were anti-socialism?”