Why the End of Doug Elmendorf's CBO Matters

On Monday, Bloomberg Politics learned that the incoming Republican leadership of Congress would not grant Doug Elmendorf another term running the Congressional Budget Office. On its face, the decision just made sense–elections have consequences, etc. "I'm sort of baffled that people think it's bizarre/alarming for the GOP majority to appoint a new CBO chief," suggested New York Times economics writer Josh Barro.

Before the CW hardens, it's worth looking at how the Elmendorf era ended. The respected CBO director, a veteran of Bill Clinton's Treasury Department, was appointed in 2009 to fill the unexpired term of Peter Orzsag, who'd been bumped up to run the Office of Management and Budget. Elmendorf was reappointed in 2011, and there was a push–spurred by Orszag–to keep him on in 2015. A week after the GOP's election victories, with little attention focused on the CBO, Orzsag wrote in his Bloomberg View column that "the new leadership might appoint someone who is more an advocate than an analyst."