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Economic Stimulus

During periods of weak economic activity, the Congress often considers legislation aimed at boosting output and employment. The policies considered include providing funds to states and localities, supporting people in need, purchasing goods and services, providing temporary tax relief for individuals and businesses, and making changes in government regulatory policies. CBO analyzes the probable effects of such policies.

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Actual ARRA Spending Over the 2009-2011 Period Quite Close to CBO's Original Estimate

blog post

January 5, 2012


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Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output from July 2011 Through September 2011

report

November 22, 2011

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Abstract

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) contains provisions that are intended to boost economic activity and employment in the United States. Section 1512(e) of the law requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to comment on reports filed by recipients of ARRA funding that detail the number of jobs funded through their activities. This CBO report fulfills that requirement. It also provides CBO’s estimates of ARRA’s overall impact on employment and economic output in the third quarter of calendar year 2011, as well as over the entire period since February 2009. Those estimates—which CBO considers more comprehensive than the recipients’ reports—are based on evidence from similar policies enacted in the past and on the results of various economic models.


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Policies for Increasing Economic Growth and Employment in 2012 and 2013

report

November 15, 2011

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Highlights

The Economic Outlook

CBO expects that, in 2012 under current law,

  • The unemployment rate will remain close to 9 percent and
  • GDP growth will be about 2½ percent, with the level of GDP remaining well below its potential.

Fiscal Policy Options for Increasing Economic Growth and Employment in 2012 and 2013

One criterion for evaluating fiscal policy options is the impact on the economy per dollar of budgetary cost. Based on that measure of cost-effectiveness:

Higher-impact policies

  • Reduce the incremental cost to businesses of adding employees or
  • Are targeted toward people who would be most likely to spend additional income.

Lower-impact policies

  • Primarily affect businesses’ cash flow but have little impact on their incentives to hire or invest.

Reductions in taxes and increases in government spending would produce short-term economic benefits—but without offsetting actions to reverse the accumulation of government debt, future output and future incomes would tend to be lower than they otherwise would have been.




If policymakers wanted to boost the economy in the near term while seeking to achieve long-term fiscal sustainability, a combination of policies would be required: changes in taxes and spending that would widen the deficit now but reduce it later in the decade.

Other Types of Policy Options for Increasing Economic Growth and Employment in 2012 and 2013

CBO examined an illustrative set of potential changes in regulatory policies and other kinds of legislative actions (other than changes in fiscal policy) related to energy and the environment, the financial and health care sectors, and international trade.

CBO concludes:

  • Some changes in policies that CBO considered would probably raise output and employment during the next few years; other changes would probably lower output and employment.
  • The economic effects of those specific changes would probably be too small or would occur too slowly to significantly affect overall output or employment in the next two years.

Ranges of Cumulative Effects of Policy Options on Employment in 2012 and 2013



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Estimates of ARRA’s Impact in the Third Quarter of 2011

blog post

November 22, 2011


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CBO Testified on Policies to Promote Economic Growth and Employment in 2012 and 2013

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November 15, 2011


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More from CBO’s Update of the Budget and Economic Outlook: Impact of Fiscal Policy on Economic Growth in the Next Few Years

blog post

September 1, 2011


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More from CBO’s Update of the Budget and Economic Outlook: Persistent Effects of the Recent Recession on Potential Output

blog post

September 2, 2011


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CBO's Estimates of ARRA's Impact on Employment and Economic Output for the Second Quarter of 2011

blog post

August 24, 2011


  • Automatic Stabilizers
  • Tables to Accompany the 2011 Automatic Stabilizers Report
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The Effects of Automatic Stabilizers on the Federal Budget

report

April 21, 2011


Abstract

This report focuses on the automatic responses of revenues and outlays to developments in the economy—the automatic stabilizers—that reflect cyclical movements in real (inflation-adjusted) output and unemployment. CBO estimates that automatic stabilizers are adding significantly to the budget deficit now but that their contribution will steadily fade over the next few years.


Highlights

In March 2011, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its most recent baseline projections of federal revenues, outlays, and budget balances for the next 10 years. For those projections, CBO assumed the continuation of current laws and policies that affect taxes and mandatory spending programs and extrapolated the growth of discretionary spending by using projected rates of inflation. CBO estimated in March that the baseline budget deficit will rise from $1.3 trillion in fiscal year 2010 to $1.4 trillion in 2011 and then will average $692 billion over the next five years. At 9.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2011, the deficit in those terms will be the second largest in more than half a century (behind only the 2009 deficit, which was 10.0 percent of GDP). By comparison, CBO projects that the deficit will average 4.1 percent of GDP during the five years from 2012 through 2016 if current laws remain in place.

CBO's projections of the budget deficit are affected by legislation that governs taxation and spending and by the automatic responses of revenues and outlays to developments in the economy and other factors. This report focuses on a component of the latter group—the automatic stabilizers—that reflect cyclical movements in real (inflation-adjusted) output and unemployment. During recessions, GDP falls relative to potential GDP (the quantity of output that corresponds to a high rate of use of labor and capital), and revenue declines automatically. In addition, some outlays—for example, to pay unemployment insurance claims or to provide federal nutrition benefits—automatically increase. Those automatic reductions in revenues and increases in outlays when GDP is falling relative to potential GDP and unemployment is correspondingly rising help bolster economic activity, but they also temporarily increase the budget deficit. As GDP moves up closer to potential GDP, revenues automatically begin to rise, outlays automatically begin to fall, and the automatic stabilizers offer a smaller boost to output. (For a discussion of the measurement of automatic stabilizers, see the appendix.)

CBO estimates that automatic stabilizers are adding significantly to the budget deficit now but that their contribution will steadily fade over the next few years. In 2010, CBO estimates, automatic stabilizers added the equivalent of 2.4 percent of potential GDP to the deficit, an amount somewhat greater than the 2.1 percent added in 2009. According to CBO's baseline projections, the contribution of automatic stabilizers to the budget deficit will decrease as a share of potential GDP—to 2.1 percent in 2011, 1.7 percent in 2012, and 1.5 percent in 2013 (see Table 1 and Table 2). That contribution will then continue to fall—to 1.0 percent in 2014, 0.5 percent in 2015, and 0.1 percent in 2016—consistent with CBO's projection for output to come back up near potential output by 2016.

The budget balance without automatic stabilizers is an estimate of what the surplus or deficit would be if GDP was at its potential, the unemployment rate was at a corresponding level, and all other factors were unchanged. That budget measure has several applications. For example, some analysts use it to discern underlying trends in government saving or dissaving (that is, trends in surpluses or deficits). Others use it to approximate whether the short-run influence of the budget on aggregate demand and on the growth of real output is positive or negative. More generally, the measure helps analysts estimate the extent to which changes in the budget balance are caused by cyclical developments in the economy and thus are likely to prove temporary rather than long lasting.

Under CBO's baseline assumptions, the budget deficit without automatic stabilizers would constitute 6.7 percent of potential GDP in 2011, up from 6.0 percent in 2010. That increase is primarily due to a rise in mandatory spending from sources other than the automatic stabilizers that amounts to 0.6 percent of potential GDP. Discretionary outlays, which have no automatic response to the business cycle, are projected to decline by 0.2 percent of potential GDP, and interest payments, which are assumed to have no automatic response, are projected to rise slightly. Revenues without automatic stabilizers are projected to decrease by 0.2 percent of potential GDP in 2011.

According to CBO's baseline projections, the budget deficit without automatic stabilizers falls significantly over the next three years, from 6.7 percent of potential GDP in fiscal year 2011 to 4.9 percent in 2012, 2.6 percent in 2013, and 1.9 percent in 2014 (see Figure 1). The drop in 2012 is due mostly to an increase in revenues without automatic stabilizers (from 15.8 percent of potential GDP to 17.1 percent)—largely attributable to the ending of the temporary reduction in payroll taxes for 2011, which was part of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 (referred to in this report as the 2010 tax act, Public Law 111-312)—and to a lower amount of depreciation deductions for investment in business equipment resulting from provisions of the 2010 tax act and other recent acts. Outlays without automatic stabilizers fall by 0.5 percent of potential GDP in 2012, reflecting declines in both mandatory and discretionary outlays that are partly offset by an increase in interest payments. In 2013, the decline in the deficit without automatic stabilizers is almost entirely the result of a rise in revenues, which in turn is due to the delayed effects of the scheduled expiration at the end of 2011 of the temporary patch for the alternative minimum tax and, to a greater extent, to the expiration at the end of 2012 of other tax provisions extended or newly implemented in the 2010 tax act, including extensions of the individual income tax reductions enacted in 2001 and 2003. Moreover, some high-income taxpayers will be subject to additional taxes that are scheduled to take effect in calendar year 2013 under provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-148) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-152). Some of the impacts of those tax changes become larger in 2014, the first full fiscal year the provisions are in effect.

In 2015, the federal deficit without automatic stabilizers reverses course, rising to 2.5 percent of potential GDP in that year and to 3.3 percent in 2016. Those increases stem mainly from a rise in mandatory outlays (largely Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) that is not attributable to automatic stabilizers. Revenues without automatic stabilizers fall slightly in those years relative to potential GDP, mostly because of legislation that shifts the timing of corporate income tax payments out of 2016 and into prior years. An uptick in interest costs is roughly offset by a decline in discretionary spending.



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Report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program

report

March 29, 2011

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Abstract

In October 2008, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 established the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to enable the Department of the Treasury to purchase or insure troubled assets as a way to promote stability in financial markets. Section 202 of that legislation requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to prepare a report on those transactions within 45 days of a report issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on the TARP's activities. This fifth statutory report from CBO on the TARP's transactions follows the report that OMB submitted to the Congress on February 14, 2011.


Highlights

In October 2008, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (Division A of Public Law 110-343) established the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to enable the Department of the Treasury to promote stability in financial markets through the purchase and guarantee of "troubled assets." Section 202 of that legislation requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to submit semiannual reports on the costs of the Treasury's purchases and guarantees of troubled assets. The law also requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to prepare an assessment of each OMB report within 45 days of its issuance. That assessment must discuss three elements:

  • The costs of purchases and guarantees of troubled assets,
  • The information and valuation methods used to calculate those costs, and
  • The impact on the federal budget deficit and debt.

To fulfill its statutory requirement, CBO has prepared this report on transactions completed, outstanding, and anticipated under the TARP as of March 3, 2011. CBO estimates that the cost to the federal government of the TARP's transactions (also referred to as the subsidy cost), including grants for mortgage programs that have not been made yet, will amount to $19 billion. That cost stems largely from assistance to American International Group (AIG), aid to the automotive industry, and grant programs aimed at avoiding foreclosures. Other transactions with financial institutions will, taken together, yield a net gain to the federal government, in CBO's estimation.

CBO's current estimate of the cost of the TARP's transactions is $6 billion less than the $25 billion estimate shown in the agency's previous report on the TARP (issued in November 2010). The reduction in the estimated cost results primarily from a lower assessment of losses from assistance provided to the automotive industry. CBO's current estimate is well below OMB's latest estimate of $64 billion, largely because of different assessments of the cost of the Treasury's housing programs under the TARP.

When the TARP was created, the U.S. financial system was in a precarious condition, and the transactions envisioned and ultimately undertaken engendered substantial financial risk for the federal government. The costs directly associated with the TARP, when taken in isolation, have come out toward the low end of the range of possible outcomes anticipated when the program was launched; however, funds invested, loaned, or granted to participating institutions through the Federal Reserve and other government entities helped limit those costs. As a result, only $432 billion will be disbursed through the TARP, CBO estimates, well below the $700 billion initially authorized. Overall, the outcomes of most transactions made through the TARP were favorable for the federal government.



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