# Plain Language Summary: CBO Show Your Work Act

Right now, when Congress wants to know how much a new law will cost or what economic effects it might have, they ask the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to analyze it. The CBO is basically Congress's official scorekeeper for bills. But here's the problem: when the CBO releases their cost estimates, they don't always explain exactly how they got those numbers. They don't show their math, their computer models, or the data they used. This bill would change that by requiring the CBO to publicly release all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into their estimates.

Specifically, the CBO would have to post on their website the computer models they use, the data they rely on, and detailed information about how they calculated their estimates—basically everything needed for someone outside the CBO to check their work and get the same answer. If there's data the CBO can't release for privacy or legal reasons, they'd have to at least explain what data they used, provide basic statistics about it, and tell people how to contact someone who does have access to it. This would give Congress members, researchers, economists, and the public a much clearer picture of whether the CBO's estimates are reliable and how they reached their conclusions.

The main impact would be increased transparency and accountability. Right now, if someone disagrees with a CBO cost estimate, they can't easily verify whether the CBO made an error or used questionable assumptions. This bill would make it possible for independent experts to review and challenge the CBO's work. For ordinary citizens, this means the budget debates happening in Congress would be based on more transparent and verifiable information. The bill would take effect six months after it becomes law, giving the CBO time to prepare their models and data for public release.

CBO Show Your Work Act

Davidson, Warren

CBO Show Your Work Act This bill requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to make available to Congress and the public each fiscal model, policy model, and data preparation routine that the CBO uses to estimate the costs and other fiscal, social, or economic effects of legislation. For each estimate of the costs and other fiscal effects of legislation, the CBO must also disclose, in a manner sufficient to permit replication by individuals not employed by the CBO, the data, programs, models, assumptions, and other details of the computations used to prepare the estimate. For data that may not be disclosed, the CBO must make available to Congress and the public <ul> <li> a complete list of all data variables for the data; </li> <li> descriptive statistics for all data variables for the data, to the extent that the descriptive statistics do not violate the rule against disclosure; </li> <li> a reference to the statute requiring that the data not be disclosed; and </li> <li> contact information for the individual or entity who has unrestricted access to the data. </li> </ul>