I hope Obama is seeing that for all his attempts at bi-partisanship, republicans are still willing to LIE. Apparently, a CBO report that republicans leaked to the AP wasn't complete, nor was it really a report.
Reports of a recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, showing that the vast majority of the money in the stimulus package won't be spent until after 2010, have Democrats on the defensive and the GOP calling for a pullback in wasteful spending.
Funny thing is, there is no such report.
"We did not issue any report, any analysis or any study," a CBO aide told the Huffington Post.
The CBO was running some of the numbers in President Obama stimulus plan (only $300b of though, not the full ~800b). A few dems and repubs were shown the preliminary numbers but no official report has been issued.
HuffPo
...the nonpartisan CBO ran a small portion of an earlier version of the stimulus plan through a computer program that uses a standard formula to determine a score -- how quickly money will be spent. The score only dealt with the part of the stimulus headed for the Appropriations Committee and left out the parts bound for the Ways and Means or Energy and Commerce Committee.
Because it dealt with just a part of the stimulus, it estimated the spending rate for only about $300 billion of the $825 billion plan. Significant changes have been made to the part of the bill the CBO looked at.
The CBO numbers were given to a small number of congressional Democrats and Republicans, but were not posted online because they're not an official CBO product. (Media outlets, while reporting widely about the "report," have declined to post it online
[snip]
Following the press reports, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) pounced, citing the AP, Post, and other reports to make the case that the spending was wasteful. Republican aides roamed the Capitol press galleries, flogging the CBO numbers...
We'll of course Mr. Boehner, jump at the "report". As with most things republican they only read far enough to make their case. So here's what happen folks, Repubs prematurely released an unfinished report to the media, the media reports it without caveats, and context, the Repubs then quote the media as if they had nothing to do with it, Dems are left bewildered.
Wash, rinse, repeat. We've seen this too many times. And Mr. Moran (D) was on Harball with Mr. Bilbray (R). Moran had every chance to stress that the republicans were quoting a non-existent report, or at the very least say the report was in its preliminary stage and had not been officially stamp done by the CBO.