One of the Congressional Budget Office’s longest-serving and most influential staffers, whose career spanned the leadership of all 10 of the agency’s directors, retired last week after 48 years on the job.
Robert A. Sunshine joined the CBO in 1976, a year after its formation as part of the 1974 budget law that also created the House and Senate Budget committees and established the modern budget process. Sunshine, who goes by “Bob,” most recently served as senior adviser to the director, and before that as deputy director and acting director of the agency, among other roles.
As he steps down, fittingly at the end of the fiscal year, those who worked closely with Sunshine are lauding his professional contributions and personal qualities serving an institution that plays one of the most critical roles on Capitol Hill through its analysis of legislative impacts.
A CBO cost estimate can make or break a bill’s chances, depending on whether the agency says it will increase the deficit, and by how much. That’s particularly important when it comes to budget reconciliation bills, which require committees to hit precise spending, revenue or deficit requirements; if the CBO says they missed the target, a reconciliation bill could lose its fast-track Senate procedural protections.
The agency also issues periodic budget and economic projections that serve as a widely cited barometer for lawmakers, economists and the public.
In a tribute to Sunshine inserted into the record on Sept. 19, Senate Budget Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said the CBO official “served as a mentor to countless members of the CBO staff — and to many a CBO director — and he has remained steadfast in his commitment to CBO’s mandate to be objective, impartial and nonpartisan.”
Senate Budget ranking member Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, said Sunshine is “highly regarded on both sides of the aisle for his deep knowledge of the budget process and commitment to CBO’s role in that process.” Grassley added that it is Sunshine’s “personal ethic — his optimism and thoughtful consideration for his friends and colleagues — that truly defines him.”
Partisan flare-up
Sunshine’s departure from the agency on Sept. 25 came the same day as arguments flared between Republicans and Democrats over the CBO’s work.
The occasion was a House Budget Committee markup of six bills that would make changes in some of the agency’s procedures, including one that would scale back the director’s power to appoint members of the CBO’s health advisory panel. Another bill approved by the committee would direct the CBO not to include one-time emergency spending bills as a continuing cost adjusted upward for inflation in 10-year spending projections, something Republicans say creates a bias for higher spending.
The House Budget markup featured complaints about CBO analysis from some Republicans and counter-arguments by Democrats who said some in the GOP were trying to blame the agency for the failures of Congress. Democrats have at other times been the critics, when they were displeased with the agency’s cost estimates, and Republicans the defenders.
The CBO has periodically come under fire since it was built from the ground up by its first director, the late Alice M. Rivlin, who is credited with setting standards that gave the agency credibility and authority in the years that followed.
Congress established the CBO as a part of the legislative branch to provide independent, nonpartisan analysis of legislation. In previous decades, Congress generally had to rely on the White House budget office for fiscal analysis.
The agency employs about 270 staff, most of them economists and public policy analysts with advanced degrees, and has a budget of $70 million in fiscal 2024.
Sunshine talked about the CBO’s efforts to remain objective during a 2012 interview with CQ Roll Call. He said the office’s reputation for objectivity is “a constant thing we have to be concerned about.”
“I think we spend a good amount of time and effort circulating words around here for people to look at,” he said. “And saying, ‘All right, is this complete? Does it convey the objectiveness with which we perform the analysis?’”
According to Phillip L. Swagel, the CBO’s director since 2019, one of Sunshine’s most important duties has been to serve as the “final reader,” the last person who looks at a report before it is published to make sure it meets CBO’s standards.
The last publication for which Sunshine played that role was published on Sept. 25: a response to House Budget ranking member Brendan F. Boyle, D-Pa., on the potential impacts of raising the eligibility age to receive full Social Security benefits from 67 to 69.
During a recent celebration of Sunshine’s career, Swagel said, “There’s no way to replace Bob.” Nevertheless, Swagel said they have mulled what to do without having him as the final reader.
“What we came up with is a system of getting many more people involved at various stages of the process with outputs such as reports,” he said. But Swagel added, “Bob, the point is that it’s going to take the inputs of dozens of the most experienced analysts across CBO to cover just a portion of your contributions to CBO.”
The post Respected CBO staffer retires after nearly a half-century appeared first on Roll Call.
