October 2015

  • CBO estimates that the cost of the Navy’s 2016 shipbuilding plan—an average of about $20 billion per year (adjusted for inflation) over 30 years—would be $4 billion higher than the funding that the Navy has received in recent decades.

  • In CBO’s updated analysis, extraordinary measures for borrowing additional funds without breaching the debt ceiling will be exhausted and the Treasury’s cash balance is likely to fall below $30 billion in the first few days of November.

  • CBO concludes that existing evidence does not indicate that certain policies to treat obesity would significantly reduce federal spending. Additional well-designed studies on the effects of such policies would be useful for CBO's analysis.

  • If the debt limit remains unchanged, CBO projects, the Treasury’s cash balance will be entirely depleted sometime in the first half of November, at which time the government would be unable to fully pay its obligations.

  • The federal government ran a budget deficit of $435 billion fiscal year 2015, CBO estimates, the smallest deficit recorded since 2007; the Treasury Department will report the actual deficit for fiscal year 2015 later this month.