Republican Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher introduced a resolution requiring that the House of Representatives receive a complete Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score before it considers any budget reconciliation bills.
Gallagher proposed the rule change in response to the lower chamber’s Thursday floor debate of the Build Back Better Act. The House began debate without CBO scores on provisions passed by the Energy and Commerce, Judiciary, and Ways and Means committees. Those committees passed provisions totaling more than $1.6 trillion out of the bill’s estimated top-line total of $2.4 trillion.
“The intent of the resolution is that you can’t vote on a bill itself unless there’s a CBO score. We shouldn’t be voting on massive bills without determining how much it costs,” Gallagher told the Daily Caller. “The intent is to prevent meaningful consideration of a bill without a score from the CBO.”
“Reconciliation was originally a cost-saving measure, and now it’s being abused,” he added, noting that his resolution is based off of a similar requirement for reconciliation legislation considered in the Senate.
Read the resolution here:
GALLWI_119_xml[1] by Michael Ginsberg
CBO released its Energy and Commerce score shortly after the House began its two hours of debate for the social spending package. Scores for the provisions passed by the Ways and Means and Judiciary committees were released after the House ended debate.
The CBO score indicates how much the non-partisan office’s economists believe the bill will cost over a ten-year period, including how much it will impact the federal debt. Biden administration officials have repeatedly claimed that the Build Back Better Act will not impact the federal debt due to offsetting provisions, but an analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget suggests that it may add as much as $2.5 trillion to the debt. (RELATED: Surprise! Biden’s Spending Bills Will Not ‘Cost Zero Dollars’)
The resolution is co-sponsored by five other Republicans, West Virginia Rep. David McKinley, Florida Reps. Scott Franklin and Greg Steube, North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, and Alabama Rep. Barry Moore.