If Republicans keep it up, they will make every other initiative, from the budget to tax reform to an infrastructure program, impossible. Michael Strain of the conservative American Enterprise Institute explains:

It is normal (if less than utopian) for politicians to exaggerate the benefits and understate the costs of policies they support. Part of the CBO’s job is to lay out those costs and benefits in an objective, impartial manner. It is therefore par for the course — and often healthy — for CBO analysis to be criticized. What is not normal is the attempt to discredit the agency itself.

As Strain does, one can question the assumptions the CBO makes (e.g., on the impact of the individual mandate) without denying reality. “CBO’s basic assessment of the GOP replacement plans is correct: They would result in a large increase in the number of Americans who do not have health insurance,” Strain says. “The problem with the GOP’s Obamacare replacement plans has not been the CBO. It has been the plans. Rather than trying to tear down CBO’s legitimacy, the GOP should focus on crafting better legislation.”

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And that is the heart of the matter. The attacks on the CBO are not just wrong as part of a campaign to discredit reality that conflicts with Trump’s desires; they also prevent Republicans from recognizing the drawbacks of policies that are ill-fitted to the times and will be politically untenable (because, for example, they adversely affect the poor). “A discredited CBO would lead Congress to rely on the executive branch for information and analysis of legislation,” says Strain — which is precisely why Republicans are trying to discredit it.

Beyond specific policy initiatives, this is part of the cocooning from reality that afflicts much of the Republican Party these days. Republicans will believe anything, no matter how wacky, and disregard everything, no matter how valid (fake news!), to further policy aims and their unceasing war against elites, whom they imagine have victimized them. Strain notes, “From vaccines to the benefits of free trade to the safety of genetically modified food, expert opinion seems not to matter as much as it should. Conservatives should not contribute to this problem by discrediting the public-policy expertise offered by the CBO.” Unfortunately, conservatives have been largely responsible for this problem. Ironically for a movement that defended objective truth from moral-relativizers, too many in the right wing have become dependent on a hermetically sealed Fox News environment to deliver and maintain falsehoods.