AP's $1.5 Trillion Lie

Yesterday the AP ran a story, based on an anonymous Hill staffer, saying that the House bill would cost about $1.5 trillion. They got no other confirmation of this number, and in fact, ignored the much lower estimate that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office--the people in charge of determining the costs of legislation--has provided.

The AP’s price estimate is "misleading at best," Matthew Beck, a spokesman for the House Ways and Means Committee, told [Greg Sargent].... But another House Dem staffer said the "$1.5 number exists only in the head of an unnamed source." What’s more, the Congressional Budget Office’s preliminary analysis  put the cost of the bill at $1 trillion — two-thirds the amount offered by the unnamed aide. The AP account doesn’t mention the CBO’s finding.

"The only estimate that counts is the final, comprehensive estimate by the CBO, which has not been completed," Beck says.

Of course, the number was immediately seized by one of the disgraced former elected office holders vying to be the "new" face of the Republican Party, Newt Gringich. Gringich gleefully tweeted

"The liberal health bill introduced by pelosi [sic] is a disaster. $1.5 trillion in new spending. Tax increases on virtually everyone."

Gingrich, of course, got that number from the erroneous AP report, and said so in another tweet, and then when called on it, tweeted

"CBO score of $1 trillion does not include medicare and medicaid components which democratic leaders have not yet had scored."

Here's the thing. The Medicare and Medicaid components, in the words of the CBO, "would raise taxes or reduce other spending (particularly in Medicare) in an effort to offset the federal costs of the coverage provisions." So, when those components are added in, the CBO score could be even lower that the $1 trillion they've estimated with the bill as is.

And how is AP working to fix their error? Here's a shock--they're not! They're repeating it today, and as Steve Benen writes, they aren't even attributing it any more--just stating the incorrect figure, pulled out of some anonymous staffer's ass, as fact.

No source, no reference to the CBO figure released Tuesday, and no mention of the fact that House Democrats reject the "$1.5 trillion" figure.

Naturally, others are picking up on the AP's reporting, and relaying the disputed figure. Time's Mark Halperin noted [link not working, here's the cache] this morning that House committees are expected to vote today "on the Democrats' $1.5 trillion plan."

That's Ron Fournier's AP for you. Putting their vast resources to work, as Eric Boehlert says, doing Republicans' oppo research.