House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) is trying to eliminate 89 positions from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's staff and require the office to aggregate think tank data instead of using its own professional expertise.
“They ought to be aggregators; there are plenty of think tanks that are out there,” Meadows said at a National Press Club event.
In an amendment to be offered to the security-related spending bill scheduled for a House vote this week, Meadows would cut $15 million of funding to CBO staff members responsible for estimating the budgetary costs of bills in Congress, and have them "carry out such duties solely by facilitating and assimilating scoring data compiled by the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the Urban Institute."
Scholars at the conservative think tank R Street Institute are advising against Rep. Meadows' idea, arguing, among others things, that think tanks "may not even have the manpower or desire to generate scores for the hundreds of pieces of legislation that are produced each year."