Whenever the CBO releases its budget projections, it includes a “baseline,” or “current law,” scenario. Current law assumes what is on the books will stay on the books. However, since this rarely happens, CBO created a “current policy,” or “alternative fiscal,” scenario, in which certain deficit reduction measures do not go into place. This includes certain spending reduction measures and tax increases – one prominent example is the so-called “Doc Fix,” which includes Medicare cuts that have been postponed by Congress for a decade.

Too often, media voices focus exclusively on the CBO’s current law scenario, to the great miseducation of the public. This is not new, but it is something that needs to be corrected. Below are fact-checks of four different analyses at three different prominent organizations.

Over at The New York Times, Annie Lowery writes that CBO projected the following:

…[T]he deficit, which topped 10 percent of gross domestic product in 2009, could shrink to as little as 2.1 percent of gross domestic product by 2015 — a level that most analysts say would be easily sustainable over the long run — before beginning to climb gradually through the rest of the decade.”

On the whole, Lowery’s article is pretty balanced. However, she relies entirely on the CBO’s “current law” scenario for her assessment of the next decade’s projected spending. In fact, the CBO’s “current policy” scenario – which is far more politically realistic – projects the following:

Relative to the baseline projections for 2014 to 2023, deficits would rise by a total of $2.4 trillion (including debt-service costs) to yield cumulative deficits of $8.8 trillion. Debt held by the public would reach 83 percent of GDP by the end of 2023, the largest share since 1948.

In other words, the “gradual climb” Lowery reports is not very gradual at all. Additionally, she failed to note the CBO expects the debt levels to be debilitating after the end of the next decade.

While Lowery’s article may have been somewhat inaccurate, it at least represented most of the realities surrounding the report. Media Matters’ Albert Kleine, however, did not:

The continued focus on deficit reduction is particularly interesting given the fact that, in the month of April, the federal government posted the largest budget surplus in five years. Furthermore, according to the Congressional Budget Office, current and projected deficits are expected to decline in coming years.

Kleine, relies on a Huffington Post article about the CBO’s February debt projections. Like Lowery, he uses current law projections – which, as Tea Party Patriots reported at the time, are more realistic and expect $2.5 trillion more in debt to arrive over the next decade as compared to the current law scenario. Since “coming years” is never defined – it is interesting he chose that terminology – since the CBO’s new report projects deficits and the debt to rise dramatically in the vast majority of “coming years” for the next two to three generations.

Similarly, Ellie Sandmeyer of Media Matters neglected a great deal of reality when she wrote:

In a May 14 report, the non-partisan CBO estimated that in 2013, the federal deficit will be $200 billion lower than previously projected, the smallest deficit since 2008. The report also predicted that the deficit over the next 10 years will be $618 billion less than previously thought.

Sandmeyer uses her first point to argue that deficit reduction of $618 billion is a lot. And on the surface, it is. However, she relies on the same “current law” scenario as Lowery, which as stated above is unrealistic. Furthermore, $618 billion is less than 10% of the CBO’s projected deficits of $6.34 trillion over 10 years.

That’s $6.34 trillion in addition to existing levels of publicly held debt. Which are nearly $12 trillion. Never mind debt not held by the public, which is trillions more.

Sandmeyer also claimed:

Additionally, data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis show that austerity has led to a decline in government spending, which has turned into a drag on economic growth.

This factually challenged representation of reality was refuted in February by Just Facts – the BEA only looks at 31% of total federal spending in this analysis. So Sandmeyer is definitely relying on incomplete data for her claim. Furthermore, if she looked back at the CBO’s February analysis on future economic growth, modest deficit reduction actually helps economic growth more in the long-run than does higher spending. (She should have read Tea Party Patriots’ post on the matter.)

Finally, James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute made the same error he did last week in relying on CBO’s current law projections instead of the more realistic current policy scenario for the following claim:

From 2015 through 2018, CBO sees annual budget deficits of just 2.4% of GDP, right at the 40-year average before the Great Recession.

This assumes a great deal about projections related to military spending, sequestration, Medicare payment cuts, and tax increases that are very unlikely to take place.

Fortunately, Pethokoukis is not ignorant of the long-term threat facing the country. From the close of his post:

We’ve merely managed to stabilize the problem at the historically high level of over 70% of GDP versus the 39% average of the previous four decades. Also, note that CBO projects government’s net interest spending will more than double as a share of GDP in the coming decade—from 1.4% in 2014 to 3.2% in 2023, a percentage that has been exceeded only once in the past 50 years.

And once we get past the the ten-year budget widow depicted in the charts, the deficits likely continue to widen as entitlement spending keeps increasing. Washington’s priority should be to reform entitlements and look for smart, pro-growth ways to reform taxes, immigration, education, and public investment. Growth, growth, growth!

Unfortunately, the odds are against Pethokoukis’ wish for accelerated growth, since America’s debt is now at a level that may slow economic growth by about 1% per year. With an economy $16 trillion in size and (slowly) growing, 1% less growth per year is $160 billion in 2013 – slightly under $1,600 per American household this year.

Which means another claim by Media Matters – that the national debt is not a problem right now – is completely false.

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.

Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.

Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.

Nothing bad can happen here. Nope. Not at all.

Dave Weigel has more:

…[T]he IG report on the whole affair makes no mention of Ingram. According to the report, it was “around March 1, 2010″ that “the Determinations Unit Group Manager asked a specialist to search for other Tea Party or similar organizations’ applications in order to determine the scope of the issue.” The report doesn’t have any decision rising to the commissioner’s level at all. But we know that multi-page letters with questions that Tea Partiers found invasive started going out to groups in early 2012. Ingram was testifying before Congress in her capacity as commissioner of tax-exempt/non-profit organizations as late as May 2012.

A conspiracy theorist might look at the timeline Weigel notes – April 25, 2009 was when Ingram entered her old position, and March 29, 2013 is when she moved on to the Obamacare office – and wonder if someone was protecting her. She enters the non-profit office when the Tea Party is just getting off the ground, and then six weeks before the Inspector General report on the IRS’ unethical investigation moves on.

This goes way beyond “low-level” employees.

The Senator hasn’t minced any words:

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), whose powerful committee has jurisdiction over taxes, called the IRS’s actions an “outrageous abuse of power and a breach of the public’s trust.” He said “targeting groups based on their political views is not only inappropriate but it is intolerable.”

“Americans expect the IRS to do its job without passion or prejudice,” Baucus said. “We need to get to the bottom of what happened here.”

He is exactly right. Going after groups based upon political affiliation is absolutely wrong. So the Senator should probably go after the guy who was Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in 2010, who at the time asked the IRS to:

conduct a broad review into “major” tax-exempt organizations to determine if any were misusing their tax-exempt status….[He] said “political campaigns and powerful individuals should not be able to use tax-exempt organizations as political pawns to serve their own special interests.

Absolutely right. The Senate Finance Committee’s 2010 Chairman should be ashamed for being part of this unethical scandal. Let’s see – who was Chairman of the Finance Committee at the time…

 Picture courtesy of the Senate Finance Committee website

 So, how does one investigate themselves?

Well, I’m sure Senator Baucus is the only hypocrite here – I’m sure other Senate Democrats are more consistent. Let’s see what Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) had to say about the IRS:

On Monday, Senator Shaheen called the actions “completely unacceptable” and said an investigation must follow.

“I think Congress has an oversight responsibility to make sure that investigation gets done and to make sure if there are people responsible, that they are punished appropriately.”

Right on, Senator! I’m sure you believed this before last year’s elections, too, right? Right?

A group of seven Senate Democrats urged the Internal Revenue Service on Monday to impose a strict cap on the amount of political spending by tax-exempt, nonprofit groups.

The senators said the lack of clarity in the IRS rules has allowed political groups to improperly claim 501(c)4 status and may even be allowing donors to these groups to wrongly claim tax deductions for their contributions. The senators promised legislation if the IRS failed to act to fix these problems.

“We urge the IRS to take these steps immediately to prevent abuse of the tax code by political groups focused on federal election activities.  But if the IRS is unable to issue administrative guidance in this area then we plan to introduce legislation to accomplish these important changes,” the senators wrote.

The letter was signed by Senators Charles E. Schumer, Michael Bennet, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, Jeanne Shaheen and Al Franken. It follows an earlier letter, sent to the IRS by the same of group of senators last month, that also urged the IRS to better enforce rules pertaining to 501(c)4 organizations.

Huh. That’s weird. Looks like amnesia is kicking in early for a couple of our esteemed Senators. Well, they’re probably the only ones. It’s not like three Democrats are this hypocritical:

In a statement, Levin and U.S. Sen John McCain said the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will look this June into the IRS’ actions, alongside a previous scheduled hearing on on 501(c)4 non profit groups in June.

The statement reads:

We had tentatively planned a hearing on that issue for June. After Friday’s announcement that the IRS, to the extent it has been enforcing the law, may have done so in ways that singled out some groups for special scrutiny, we have determined that the subcommittee should investigate that additional issue as well.

On Friday, Levin called for investigations into the IRS’ practices.

Facepalm:

“Organizations are using Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(4) to gain tax exempt status while engaging in partisan political campaigns,” wrote Levin in one letter http://capitolwords.org/date/2012/09/19/S6428_internal-revenue-service-and-501c4-organizations/ on July 27, 2012. “Making the problem worse is that the IRS knows there is a problem because of the public nature of the activity but has failed to address it.”

He asked whether the 12 organizations “applied for [tax-exempt status]; and if so … received the described exemption for political activity from the IRS.”

Levin’s list contained nine conservative groups, including Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform, and Americans for Prosperity. It also included two liberal groups and one centrist group.

Need I say more? While these Democrats, and others, can certainly claim they didn’t cause the IRS to investigate “Tea Party” and “Patriot” groups more than others, these bureaucrats know how to read between the lines. Furthermore, as Ross Douthat pointed out this week, the culture of distrust and hatred created by these politicians and their allies against the Tea Party didn’t help matters.

Note: Tea Party Patriots reached out to Senator Baucus’ office to clarify the flip-flop from 2010 to 2013. As of press time, his office had not provided comment.

(H/T to Brian Walsh’s U.S. News & World Report op-ed for links and information on Senators Baucus and Shaheen.)

The letter, sent by Webster, Chamberlain & Bean, LLP, is available here: www.teapartypatriots.org/irs-letter/

“It is clear the IRS discriminated against citizens of this country and violated their basic Constitutional rights as corroborated by the Inspector General Report. Sarah Hall Ingram allowed and possibly encouraged the outrageous and discriminatory tactics toward Tea Party Patriots based on political ideology, clearly violating her supposedly unbiased office,” said Jenny Beth Martin, Co-Founder and National Coordinator of Tea Party Patriots. “We do not trust the IRS to implement the Affordable Care Act in a fair and equal manner and further do not trust anyone who was involved in targeting tea party groups to administer the Affordable Health Care Act in a fair and equal manner. Discrimination while making those decisions would not only impact Constitutional rights but could very well impact life and death decisions for all Americans.

“We certainly do not trust Sarah Hall Ingram to be anywhere near our incredibly sensitive health care decisions.  It appears the administration has rewarded her for allowing the discriminatory actions rather than disciplining her. She must be terminated or resign immediately for her disgraceful actions.

“These unfolding revelations about the IRS are the reason why our group is reviewing all legal recourse, and why we cannot take any chances with their documentation of targeting against us.”

First, the bad news – the pre-May 2013 effect on the slowing of the Tea Party’s growth in America:

Gee, could the fact that the IRS was actively blocking organizational efforts have anything to do with that “waning”? Don’t forget, the IRS didn’t approve any of those tax-exempt applications for 27 months while approving dozens for progressive groups.  Since most of that took place between February 2010 and the 2012 elections, I’d call that a contributing factor.

Morrissey is right; who knows how many more fiscally conservative candidates might have been able to win seats in local, county, state, and national elections if the IRS hadn’t gotten in the way?

Over the last several years, the mainstream media has targeted the Tea Party with dishonest representations, polls showing the movement is dead or unpopular, etc. Well, now we know part of why so many groups were unable to effectively counter these narratives – at least dozens of groups had their legal activism halted or greatly blunted by the IRS.

Of course, combating the culture is hard when the hate and misrepresentation are widespread, as Ross Douthat noted earlier in the week. The NAACP’s Chair Emeritus provided another example of this vitriol earlier this week on MSNBC.

The good news, going forward:

Yes, that will tend to motivate more activism — when you get proven right about government overreach.   Remember, too, that the big impetus to the formation of the Tea Party was ObamaCare, which was another government overreach that generated a ton of grassroots opposition.  And guess which agency will be enforcing ObamaCare?

Exactly. To paraphrase Jon Stewart, the burden of proof of government overreach has switched. The burden is now on Washington to prove it’s not acting unethically and/or illegally, rather than on conservative activists.

So the IRS may have given the candidates for overspending and big government victory last year. But going forward, those who defend the current, corrupt system have their work decidedly cut out for them. The Tea Party, rather than being dead, is vindicated.

Tea Party Patriots spoke against the IRS’ actions, which perhaps affected last year’s elections. Tea Party groups have languished for years in the gulag of IRS paperwork while organizations with “progress” in their names are approved within weeks.

The IRS’ actions over the past 18 months are “corrosive and deceitful cover-ups and contradictions.” Martin also highlighted one activist who was targeted by the IRS by name, and pointed out how others were intimidated into never engaging in the process in the first place.

Among them, the Myrtle Beach Tea Party estimates 100 members were lost because of IRS harassment, to which Tea Party Patriots promised to “keep fighting against the IRS and big government.”

This scandal highlights how limiting the federal government to Constitutional limits is critical. The fair treatment of all citizens in our representative democracy  is at stake..

The full press conference, including Jenny Beth’s speech, can be seen below. View timeline of the IRS’ scandal here.

And make sure to follow Jenny Beth and Tea Party Patriots on Twitter.

Watch the appearance.

1. The House passed the Working Families Flexibilities Act of 2013, which allows employers to reimburse hourly employees who work overtime with up to 160 hours of compensation time instead of time-and-a-half pay. The latter is required under current law.
2. The Senate is never going to pass this legislation, and the White House is all but set to veto it.
3. The House passed the law as part of a new effort by the GOP to be family friendly.
4. The White House cited, among concerns, the lack of “protections if the employer were to shut down or declare bankruptcy before employees’ free time could be used.”

In other words, the GOP’s “family friendly” effort is running into a brick wall. As it should. While the legislation isn’t necessarily problematic – employees and employers should have flexibility on agreements related to reimbursement for work – the GOP is doing it for all the wrong reasons.

First, the idea of passing legislation for purposes of party PR is atrocious. It’s a longstanding habit in Congress, but it’s still a highly unethical use of public dollars.

Second, the legislation won’t have much impact on the struggling economy. If the GOP really wants to help families, it could put forth a tax reform plan ASAP. And it could cut spending.

Third, if the GOP really wants to overturn the federal government’s overstepping of its bounds in this situation – a mandate of time-and-a-half pay for overtime work should be decided on between employer and employee, not politicians and bureaucrats – it should actually do so. Eliminate the requirement for overtime pay outright. Skirting the edges with a passive-aggressive, transparently shallow piece of legislation is not what political leaders are supposed to do.