The Republicans were anxious to tout the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) preliminary analysis of a portion of the stimulus package, claiming that it showed the plan would have little impact over the next two years. The media were anxious to follow their lead, describing this preliminary and partial analysis as a "CBO Report" on the stimulus.
Now we actually have a CBO report on the stimulus. It projects that $374 billion of the $606 billion of spending appropriated in the bill (61.7 percent) will actually get out the door by the end of 2010. (This number assumes that spending in the 4th quarter of 2010 occurs at the same pace as it did during fiscal year 2010.)
It will be interesting to see if the Republicans are as anxious to use these CBO numbers as they were of the numbers in the preliminary report. It will also be interesting to see if all the media outlets who highlighted the preliminary analysis give the same prominence to CBO's actual report.
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