Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Tina The Biden administration’s economic team has a new, wonky enemy: The Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM). The model, an initiative of the University of Pennsylvania, has emerged as a surprise complication for the passage of Biden’s $1.75 reconciliation bill. In the process, it has drawn the ire of top White House officials. That’s because while there are many economic analyses of the bill out there, the PWBM has proven influential with one particularly important audience: Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.), who takes its findings seriously, according to people familiar with the matter. And to the White House’s frustration, PWBM’s latest analyses contend the reconciliation framework would add nearly $500 billion to the national debt over the next decade, contradicting the White House argument that the package would not just be completely paid for but reduce the deficit. Chief of staff RON KLAIN has dismissed the model as right-wing and conservative, according to one source familiar with the matter. Biden top economic officials, including the National Economic Council deputy director DAVID KAMIN and Assistant Treasury Secretary for Economic Policy BEN HARRIS, have been in touch with the Penn Wharton Team about the model’s conclusions. “The Penn Wharton Budget Model is simply wrong on its math, and didn't even evaluate the policies actually in the bill," said JESSE LEE, a spokesperson for the White House’s National Economic Council. “We’ve laid out our math on the bill on the table for all to see,” Lee said. “That math relied entirely on the independent Joint Committee on Taxation estimates for tax provisions — estimates that contradicted the Penn Wharton Budget Model and validated the administration's initial estimates.“ KENT SMETTERS , a Wharton School professor and the faculty director of the PWBM, described the White House response as “the standard ‘not our bill’ and ‘version control’ redirects.” His team has about 30 people working for it in both Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., with more expected in the coming months. PWBM also put out an analysis on how much the reconciliation bill would cost if all the temporary programs were extended (which is not the actual plan but what Democrats want), without Congress finding additional offsets (which may be hard to find). That model pegged the potential total cost at $4 trillion, a topline that some congressional Republicans and media outlets latched onto. Manchin seems to have been at least somewhat persuaded by this argument. At a press conference last week, he said "[a]s more of the real details outlined in the basic framework are released, what I see are shell games and budget gimmicks that make the real cost of this so-called ‘$1.75 trillion dollar’ bill estimated to be twice as high if the programs are extended or made permanent.” He added, "That is a recipe for economic crisis." The White House and congressional Democrats now must persuade Manchin that PWBM’s numbers are incorrect, or wait until the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis comes in and hope it’s closer to their projections. "Because the Senate has to rely on CBO for important process determinations, CBO scores are more comprehensive than any other group," said ZACH MOLLER, a former Senate budget aide and director of the centrist think tank Third Way's economic program. PWBM’s Smetters previously worked in the Congressional Budget office from 1995 to 1998 and at GEORGE W. BUSH’s Treasury Department as deputy assistant secretary for economic policy from 2001 to 2002. Democrats may use his past service in a Republican administration to undermine the analysis, although Democrats often cited PWBM’s analyses during the fight over the Trump tax cuts. “We were left-wing just a few years ago,” said Smetters. “If we're right-wing, it would be hard to understand how we, for example, posted something on how universal health care can actually expand the economy, contrary to what people think.” JASON FURMAN , the former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration, said that he doesn’t believe the team has an ideological slant but added that he thinks their model has limitations. “I don't think they're biased,” he said. “I think the Penn Wharton budget model is pretty good, but I think there's a huge error band around it, like there is around any forecast. The issue is their model is reasonably complicated and blackbox. I think it's one useful thing to look at, but I wouldn't treat it as the truth.” INTRODUCING ‘POTUS PUZZLER’ — Regular readers of this newsletter know we try to keep our trivia questions fun, really difficult, and a little nerdy. Starting this week, we are partnering with the Miller Center of Public Affairs, a nonpartisan research center and preeminent authority on the American presidency based at the University of Virginia, to help us test your White House know-how. BUT, BUT, BUT: We have been pleasantly surprised by the stupendous reader-submitted trivia we’ve received, so we are going to keep featuring a POTUS Puzzler from a reader every Wednesday. Keep sending us your toughest, most fun presidential questions. And thanks for reading. Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you JAMISON R. CITRON, special assistant to the president for personnel strategy and operations? 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