The Speaker's Scoring (Wait, So What's in My Sausage?)

As newly minted Speaker Paul Ryan begins officially presiding over the House (as well as the illusion of a unified Republican caucus), all eyes are on the looming slugfest over government spending. Even with a shutdown-stymying budget proposal moving through Congress, the GOP will continue to push for conservative-flavored budget policies. Ryan himself has made reformative budget proposals a hallmark of his political career, being known for authoring "annual budgets that make hard choices about where money is spent (and not spent) by the government." But Ryan's figures have increasingly relied on an analytical process known as "dynamic scoring," and to say "the devil's in the details" would be overstating these particular details' tangibility.

There is a quote often attributed to German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck which compares the legislative process to sausage making. The basic premise is that, like sausages, if you knew what went into making your laws you would find them, shall we say, unpalatable.
Dynamic scoring is perhaps the most offensive of ingredients in the current legislative sausage. In essence, it is the metric used to substantiate supply-side economic theory a la GOP policy. Dynamic scoring seeks to predict the theoretical increase in government revenue that would come from spending cuts and other Republican favored economic reforms (such as the re-consolidation of tax brackets and the elimination of the capital gains tax).

As is often with a pungent ingredient, dynamic scoring does have its use in small doses. It can be useful and even necessary for anyone attempting to project the effects of certain variables on economic policy, such as the amount of spending by undocumented immigrants. Beyond such considerations, the accuracy and effectiveness of dynamic scoring in projecting economic growth is highly questionable. Yet, starting with Reagan, it has continued to be used by Republicans in justifying the trickle-downability of their proposed policies. Now Paul Ryan has made dynamic scoring a buzzword again, using it throughout his succession of budget proposals like Paula Deen uses butter. The whole thing makes one wonder if Paul Ryan is stealing a little of his ideas from Amway brochures.

Certainly, the next few months leading into election season are sure to be filled with dramatic displays of economic tug-of-war in the House. As for Paul Ryan, his position as speaker is still too fresh to predict exactly what cards he’s holding, but if his past proposals are any indication, prepare for the wurst.