A Real CBO Report on the Stimulus!

Just don’t tell these guys.

And, as Think Progress notes, even the so-called intellectuals in the conservative room don’t know that there is a real report. According to this, AEI denizen Phil Levy writes a blog post today proudly claiming to be one of the Bad Faith Economists that Krugman has called out recently. Note though, that Levy cites the CBO preliminary analysis of a portion of the package from early this month — not the one that was released today! But apparently the media doesn’t seem to have a clue that they have been punked on this thing — Think Progress finds 81 citations to the bogus report in the last week.

So the result:

In an eagerly awaited analysis of the stimulus package, which is set for a vote in the House tomorrow, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that the measure would cost the federal government about $816 billion over the next 10 years and that approximately $526 billion, or about 65 percent, would be spent by the end of September 2010.

This is less than Obama’s stated target of 75% of money out of the door by the end of FY 2010. Some of this (according to the CBO report) is due to the virtual physics of the thing — having more budget authority doesn’t mean that agencies are ready to spend and oversee that spending immediately. In addition, there are some restrictions on when projects can be done. The other thing noted in this report is thatvthis reflects the limitations of “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects — both in the number and the quality of projects. Deferred maintenance and building isn’t just about not having the money, it is also about not having enough information to define needed maintenance and building — and projects that may have been designed and ready to bid but shelved in a shuffling of priorities likely need a bit of review to make sure that at least the original Government Estimate is solid before bidding. There may be a need to ground truth some design data before moving forward. Additionally, there are projects like the carbon sequestration demo that are here that will in no way be complete by FY2010. But there is no doubt that this Bill as it is currently written does not hit the 75% target yet. But don’t take my word for it — you are going to run off and read the CBO report for yourself, so you won’t have to rely on media that is still stuck on He Say She Say — not what the real report tells you.