An Analysis of the President’s 2014 Budget

Enactment of the President’s proposals would, relative to CBO’s baseline, boost deficits between 2013 and 2015 but reduce them by increasing amounts from 2016 through 2023, CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation estimate.

Deficits would total $5.2 trillion between 2014 and 2023, $1.1 trillion less than the cumulative deficit in CBO’s baseline. Debt would also be lower, equaling 70 percent of GDP in 2023, compared to 74 percent in the baseline.

Read the report

Updated Budget Projections: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023

CBO expects that rising revenues and a drop in outlays will help lower the deficit to $642 billion (4 percent of GDP) in 2013 and that, under current law, the deficit will continue to shrink through 2015.

But even with revenues above their 40-year average as a share of the economy, deficits will increase later in the decade, mostly because of the pressures of an aging population, rising health care costs, and increasing interest payments.

Read the report

A Description of the Immigrant Population—2013 Update

Following a long decline in immigration, the share of the population in the United States composed of the foreign born has increased rapidly since 1970, reaching about 13 percent in the past few years.

About 40 million foreign-born people now live in the United States.

Read the report

Modifying Mortgages Involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Options for Principal Forgiveness

CBO examined three options for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—the two government-sponsored enterprises that own or guarantee more than half of the outstanding residential mortgages—to use principal forgiveness to assist certain borrowers. CBO finds that those options would probably:

• Result in small savings to the government,
• Slightly reduce mortgage foreclosure and delinquency rates, and
• Slightly boost overall economic growth.

Read the report

Approaches for Scaling Back the Defense Department’s Budget Plans

Funding in 2013 for the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) base budget, which excludes overseas military operations, is 11 percent less (after adjusting for inflation) than its appropriation for 2012. Under limits set in law, DoD’s funding will grow slightly faster than the rate of inflation through 2021. CBO estimates that the costs of DoD’s budget plans would be much higher than the funding limits allow.

Read the report