Tax reform activist Grover Norquist slammed the Congressional Budget Office analysis of a GOP healthcare bill, calling it "dishonest."
Norquist predicted the American Health Care Act will result in tax and spending cuts that will be permanent, and "that's the only number that matters," he told "Newsmax Now" host Miranda Khan on Newsmax TV.
"The CBO guessing how many people . . . lose their health insurance – they are going from estimates that the CBO made that were off by 100 percent on how many people would get healthcare," he said.
"And they're counting the numbers who lose healthcare from numbers that don't exist. They're really working off of their own previous lousy numbers, which they haven't fixed."
Tune in to Newsmax TV on FiOS 615, YouTube Livestream, Newsmax TV App from any smartphone, NewsmaxTV.com, Roku, Amazon Fire — More Systems Here
He added the CBO had predicted there would be "twice as many people in the exchanges as there are now."
"Then they say a bunch of people, if you don't force them to buy health insurance through the exchanges with Obama's rules . . . then they've lost their insurance. That's not losing – that's escaping. It's really dishonest."
Norquist also predicted President Donald Trump's proposed budget will spark an economic growth rate that exceeds its estimated three percent.
"The Democrat position is that two percent – which is what [President Barack] Obama delivered over the last eight years – is as good as anybody could every do," he said.
"I believe if we pass the Trump tax cut, then you'll be looking at four percent growth because the rates are so dramatically down. It's so pro-growth, and add to that the deregulatory, pro-permit positions that this administration has taken . . . three percent is a modest expectation for growth."
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.