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Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

Looking at the crap we Europeans see happening in the US, I seriously doubt the efficiency of this agency.

A good example is that story about the old lady on HN who had rented an illegal building. One agency demanded that she be evicted, yet another law forbid the eviction, or such.

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The stuff I see here in the US is nothing compared to what happens in Europe -- people incite revolution, no one seems to know who's in charge, and governments attack their own people in broad daylight!

Your generalization is as meaningless as mine is. The USA is roughly the size of your continent and its land can be governed by any number of rules and regulations, depending on where you are.

For every Texas, there's a California. For every Germany, there's a [Ukraine|Greece|Spain|...].

Neither Turkey nor the Ukraine is in the EU, that point of yours is a bit off. And for our treatment of the African refugee seekers, well I compare that to the US-Mexican border. No side is better in any way than the other.

But agreed, how we Germans treat Greece is disgusting. Basically, everyone claims "how bad the Greeks are", but the bailout money does not go to the Greeks but to our own banks. This has never been to "rescue Greece", but to rescue our fucking banks.

Not sure about their efficiency, but the CBO is normally way off on their estimates for what various programs are going to cost.

Unlike in a lot of life, being wrong in the government has little or no impact upon your ongoing viability.

A lot of this isn't actually the CBO's fault... because they're totally non-political, or need to appear to be, they score things according to the letter of the law. The thing is, the letter of the law is never followed, as whenever the painful (cost reduction) parts start to apply, Congress votes to nullify the pain, which makes them more expensive.

See the 'doc fix'.

I'm not that interested in fault. I'm interested in its reliability as a source of information. I'm interested in the trust that their information is given when they're wrong so often - for whatever political or non-political reason.

CBO numbers are used as a shield by politicians to push their agendas. I wish that they didn't have that shield because voters were more aware of its inaccuracy.

The CBO scores based on the information given to them. It's a "garbage in, garbage out" problem.

Not sure what an old lady renting a building has to do with the CBO, but I suspect that cmelbye is pointing out not that the CBO is efficient at its job, but that institutionalizing impact measurement (CBO) is insufficient in the face of powerful political incentives. That's how I read it, anyhow.

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