Gingrich labels Congressional Budget Office a 'reactionary socialist institution'

Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich used an unusual oxymoron to blast the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in New Hampshire on Monday.

Gingrich previously said if president he would abolish the CBO, a federal agency that provides independent economic data to Congress, because it found that health care reform reduces the federal budget deficit.

"The CBO is a reactionary socialist institution which does not believe in economic growth, does not believe in innovation and does not believe in data that it has not internally generated," he said.

The word "reactionary" is typically used as a derogatory adjective for those opposed to socialism or communism.

"I thought reactionaries were anti-socialism?" Donald Marron, a former acting directory of the CBO, joked on Twitter.