Accounting games: Democrats are downplaying the price of their massive spending bill, watchdog says

As House Democrats push to finally vote for their massive reconciliation spending bill before Thanksgiving, budget watchdogs are arguing their estimates are systematically undercounting how much the bill will cost taxpayers.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) is the loudest among these voices. It released a report Monday saying that the real cost of the reconciliation bill could be nearly $5 trillion if programs that are being artificially cut short are made permanent. 

"They want to spend $2.4 trillion and buy with that almost $5 trillion worth of stuff. So the way they're doing that is by making a number of the policies temporary," CRFB senior vice president Marc Goldwein told Fox News. 

CRFB also said the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is likely to strongly disagree with Democrats over how much stepped-up IRS enforcement efforts will raise to offset the costs of the bill.