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There’s stupid, and then there’s stupid.

Mike Crapo, Republican senator from Idaho, has now left no doubt whatsoever how crushingly stupid he is. He wrote to the Congressional Budget Office with a question that must have perplexed him no end. Passing certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act was estimated to reduce the deficit by $455 billion over 10 years; what effect would repealing these provisions have on the deficit?

The CBO, with a straight face, spelled it out for him:

Finally, you asked what the net deficit impact would be if certain provisions of PPACA and the Reconciliation Act that were estimated to generate net savings were eliminated—specifically, those which were originally estimated to generate a net reduction in mandatory outlays of $455 billion over the 2010–2019 period. The estimate of $455 billion mentioned in your letter represents the net effects of many provisions. Some of those provisions generated savings for Medicare, Medicaid, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and some generated costs. If those provisions were repealed, CBO estimates that there would be an increase in deficits similar to its original estimate of $455 billion in net savings over that period.

The CBO response makes it clear that Crapo knew the CBO had estimated the savings from passing the provisions to be $455 billion. And he was still having trouble figuring out the impact of repealing the provisions.

The Republican Party, of course, specializes in putting the craziest inmates in charge of the asylum. Crapo is the ranking member of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Healthcare.

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In related news, Igor Volsky over at ThinkProgress’ Wonk Room displays an equally strong case of Crapo’s Syndrome, aggravated by an attack of reading incomprehension.

The CBO’s letter to Crapo said: “On balance, the two laws’ health care and revenue provisions are estimated to reduce the projected deficit in 2020 by $28 billion, and the education provisions of the Reconciliation Act are estimated to reduce the projected deficit in 2020 by $2 billion.”

Volsky somehow read that as saying that the deficit would be reduced by $30 billion over the next 10 years, instead of just in 2020.

And so he cheerfully banged out the following paragraph:

The Congressional Budget Office is out with a new letter saying that while the health care law could “reduce the projected budget deficit by $30 billion over the next 10 years,” repealing it would increase the deficit by an estimated $455 billion…

It obviously never occurred to him that the reduction in the deficit from passing a given piece of legislation simply has to equal the increase in the deficit from repealing it.

 
*** Update, 12:55 p.m. ***

Interestingly, there is now an update to Volsky’s post. And no, it isn’t what you think. He still hasn’t realized his mistake. He’s just clearing up possible confusion on a different front:

To clarify, the $445 billion figure refers to the deficit increase if only the Medicare portions were repealed. Repealing the entire law would increase the deficit by some $140 billion.

I look forward with keen interest to seeing if Volsky corrects the foot-in-mouth. (And, if so, what kind of acknowledgment is made in the post of the correction.)

 
*** Update #2, 1:03 p.m. ***

Not one of Volsky’s finest days. The correction in his Update is, in fact, incorrect.

The $445 billion figure does not refer to “the deficit increase if only the Medicare portions were repealed.”

As the first quote in the post makes clear, the $445 billion figure refers to “certain provisions of PPACA and the Reconciliation Act” that affect Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program”.

Maybe he’ll correct his correction?

 
*** Update #3, 1:09 p.m. ***

Volsky’s Update has now been revised to:

To clarify, the $445 billion figure refers to the deficit increase if only the Medicare portions were repealed. Repealing the entire law would increase the deficit by some $140 billion. Republicans however, are strong opponents of the Medicare cuts and sponsored a series of amendments that would have repealed them.

He still hasn’t caught either of his errors.

(And we already know, don’t we, that they don’t seem to have editors over at ThinkProgress.)

 
*** Update #4, 2:21 p.m. ***

It only just struck me that Volsky’s post starts with:

The Congressional Budget Office is out with a new letter saying that while the health care law could “reduce the projected budget deficit by $30 billion over the next 10 years,” repealing it would increase the deficit by an estimated $455 billion…

He puts the incorrect statement — reduce the projected budget deficit by $30 billion over the next 10 years — in quotes. But that statement is nowhere in the letter.

Now that’s not exactly in the best practices handbook, is it?

 
*** Last and Final Update (I hope), 2:36 p.m. ***

It strikes me that Volsky’s Update (See my Update #3) is probably in need of some annotation. Here’s my sense of that it means. Volsky is saying that $30 billion and $445 billion are apples and oranges. He’s saying $30 billion is the savings from “the entire law” over 10 years, but $445 billion is the cost of repealing just the Medicare provision. So, according to him, the apples to apples comparison is that passing “the entire law” was projected to save $30 billion over 10 years, but repealing the “the entire law” is projected to cost $140 billion over 10 years.

 
*** Update #6, 3:22 p.m. ***

I finally decided to send the following email to Faiz Shakir, Vice President at the Center for American Progress and Editor-in-Chief of ThinkProgress.org and The Progress Report:

Shouldn’t someone at ThinkProgress be deeply embarrassed by this: http://www.1115.org/2010/08/26/who-says-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-stupid-question/

Stay tuned.

 
*** Update #7, 4:22 p.m. ***

The following update has now been appended to the post:

The first sentence of this post, which relied on a Modern Health article, incorrectly said that the law would reduce the deficit by $30 billion over 10 years. It will reduce it by this amount in 2020. The CBO estimates that the law will produce “$143 billion in net budgetary savings over the 2010-2019 period.”

So Volsky relied on an article that he did not mention, cite or link to. That’s not in the best practices handbook either. (That incorrect statement in quotes that I referred to earlier is presumably from this article. They require a free subscription to access content, and I didn’t bother to sign up.)

Relying on an article that he did not mention, cite or link to, he made statements that are clearly seen to be untrue if you read the CBO letter. A letter Volsky did link to, but apparently didn’t read. (Insert “best practices handbook” comment of your own choice here.)

The first sentence of the post now reads:

The Congressional Budget Office is out with a new letter saying that while the health care law could reduce the projected budget deficit by $30 billion in 2020, repealing it would increase the deficit by an estimated $455 billion…

Which really doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. It doesn’t clarify that the $455 billion is a 10-year figure (although that is eventually clear from the following quote). More importantly, the reader has no clue why a one-year saving from passing the law is being compared to the 10-year cost of repealing it.