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b_b  ·  3808 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: "US should join rest of industrialized countries and offer paid maternity leave" - Obama

Touche on the earmark thing.

But to answer your question, yes, of course the effects of legislation should be carefully projected to the extent that projections are possible. I believe that's the entire purpose of the CBO. If it is determined that the status quo is better than the proposed legislation, then the legislation is probably a bad idea. But then, we could always argue about what the terms "better" and "worse" even mean, since they're largely matters of opinion a lot of the time.