At Issue Political Analysis's misinformation

Brian McDaniel and Mike Erlandson aren't dishonest people. They just aren't connected with the people.Appearing as the RGOP and DFL representatives for At Issue With Tom Hauser respectively, they simply didn't recognize how important the One Big Beautiful Bill's tax cuts will be. Further, Erlandson talked as if the tax cuts wouldn't change people's behavior. Perhaps that's why Democrats trust CBO's scoring of the tax cuts. They trust static scoring while Republicans trust dynamic scoring.

Further, today's analysts didn't factor in the $1,700,000,000,000 in savings from mandatory spending.

Larry Kudlow explained why static scoring isn't accurate. During his opening riff a month ago, he said "The current cost of the 2017 tax cuts should be zero. Why should they be zero? Because they actually produced more revenues, $2.3 trillion more revenues than CBO estimated over the past seven years. The current cost of the 2017 tax cuts should be zero. Why should they be zero? Because they actually produced more revenues, $2.3 trillion more revenues than CBO estimated over the past seven years."

How far off is CBO?

According to Kudlow, it is not the only time the CBO has missed estimates. For example, with the Affordable Care Act, the CBO initially estimated up to 25 million people would sign up for healthcare on the Obamacare exchanges by 2017. The actual figure in 2017 was only 12 million, a significant miss of 13 million people.

Also noted were the potential savings from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The CBO initially estimated billions in deficit reduction, but the latest estimates show it could add $428 billion to the deficit. The CBO made such projections assuming that the more significant tax cuts in the 2017 package would expire at the end of 2025."

Here's Kudlow's explanation in video form:

I'm not insisting that CBO is corrupt. I'm just insisting that they're frequently wrong with their projections. On the positive side of things, Erlandson admitted that adding a work requirement to Medicaid and SNAP benefits was likely a positive thing. This morning, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was on CNN's State of the Union program. Here's part of that interview:

.@SecScottBessent on the common sense work requirements for able-bodied Americans to get Medicaid:

"There are no change in benefits. There's a change in requirements to get the benefits... we have already seen working class wages move up. We are creating jobs. People can get… pic.twitter.com/2Rfd278DBV

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 6, 2025

Notice that Secretary Bessent said "There are no change in benefits. There's a change in requirements to get the benefits." Mr. Hauser should require people who appear on Political Analysis actually read the controversial parts of bills that they'll be discussing.