Important news for the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill. The Congressional Budget Office–which analyzes the extent to which certain pieces of legislation will add to, or detract from the budget deficit–has determined that the legislation will raise billions in revenue, and that though the revenue will be spent in various ways, it won’t add to the deficit.
In fact, it could even be a deficit reducer to the tune of billions of dollars.
The merits of that finding are important. But perhaps more important, for the time being, is that this blunts the ability of the bill’s opponents to mischaracterize it as “fiscally irresponsible,” etc. Not that they won’t try anyhow…but still!
