Former CBO Chief Calls Obama Administration Fiscal Policies ‘Laughable’

(CNSNews.com) – A former Republican congressional budget chief called the Obama administration’s claims to fiscal responsibility “hypocritical” and “laughable,” noting in particular the mounting unemployment numbers (9.8 percent nationwide) despite the $787-billion stimulus plan enacted in February that he said was poorly designed.

"The Obama Administration's claims of fiscal responsibility are both hypocritical .... [a]nd laughable," Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who served as director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) from 2003 through 2005, wrote in an Oct. 14 memo to Republican members of the House of Representatives.

Holtz-Eakin said in the memo that the hastily written stimulus bill enacted in February--the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009--was "poorly designed" and that was “probably one of the reasons why we’ve lost 3 million private-sector jobs since it became law."