With congressional leaders desperate to pare right back the Clinton administration’s direct-lending program for university students, defenders and opponents regarding the initiative are waging a battle of numbers.
The experts, mostly Republicans, declare that eliminating the system would save yourself $1.5 billion on the next seven years, pointing to an analysis by the Congressional Budget workplace.
But its defenders state direct financing could save more than actually $6 billion in financial 1996 through 2000, arguing that the CBO’s analysis had been centered on biased “scorekeeping” rules.
Each part has accused one other of employing the proverbial smoke and mirrors to obscure the true effect of the proposals. And also the ensuing volley of figures has confused educators, pupils, along with other observers.
“That’s why people get frustrated with Washington,” Robert H. Atwell, the president associated with United states Council on Education, an umbrella team representing degree, stated at a briefing for reporters.
In the center of this dispute are congressional guidelines regulating how a expenses of federal government programs are tallied for budgetary purposes. This scorekeeping process determines whether spending plan bills meet deficit-reduction goals, and quite often will not mirror just exactly what the federal federal government actually spends.
The costs are part of federal spending for example, the 1990 Credit Reform ACT decreed that most administrative costs were not “counted” as part of the cost of any government loan programs under those “scoring.
Accounting Advantage
Both edges concur that the statutory legislation unintentionally gave the direct-lending program–which wasn’t enacted until 1993–an accounting advantage on the older guaranteed-loan system when it comes to budgetary scorekeeping.
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