Democrats Barreling Ahead on Inflation Reduction Act Without Input From Congressional Budget Office

House Democrats are moving forward with an Aug. 12 vote on the $700 billion Inflation Reduction Act despite the lack of Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scores—meaning that the full financial implications of the bill are unclear.

On July 27, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced that he had reached a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to pledge his support for a $700 billion spending bill, which is supposed to bring in $725 billion in new revenue to the federal government and reduce the deficit by $292 billion annually.

The bill, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, was the product of a year of harried negotiations, compromises, and disappointments for Democrats as they tried to pass the much larger $1.75 trillion Build Back Better (BBB) Act.

Historically, lawmakers have waited for the nonpartisan CBO’s full economic appraisal of legislation, which paints a clearer picture of the long term effects of a bill on federal revenues, expenditures, deficit spending, and national debt. But given the wide scope of the Inflation Reduction Act, the CBO has only had time to release preliminary, incomplete estimates about the long-term effects of the bill on the U.S. economy.

Still, Democrats seem to be on track for a vote on the bill sometime during the afternoon of Aug. 12, despite the lack of CBO scoring.

Because the bill has already been passed in the Senate, House passage of the bill will send the legislation straight to the desk of President Joe Biden, who has said he will sign it.

Included in the bill’s $700 billion in new spending is an $80 billion appropriation to the Internal Revenue Service—six times the agency’s current budget—as well as an array of new climate policies and tax incentives for individuals and corporations who switch to renewable energy sources and low-emission vehicles.

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