Do public-private partnerships build roads more quickly or at a lower cost? Does private financing increase the funding available for highway projects? Joseph Kile, Assistant Director for Microeconomic Studies, testified on those issues.
CBO Blog
Director Doug Elmendorf testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch.
CBO’s updated estimates of the effects of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance coverage provisions, which were published in the agency’s recent report on the budget and economic outlook, do not differ much from those released in May 2013.
CBO examines the change in its projections of potential output for the year 2017: The estimate for that year that CBO prepared in February 2014 is about 7 percent lower than what it projected in January 2007.
Director Doug Elmendorf spoke yesterday about the main factors that are causing federal health care spending to grow much faster than the economy. He also summarized CBO’s analysis of a wide range of approaches to address that growth.
The slow recovery of the labor market largely reflects slow growth in the demand for goods and services. Output will grow more rapidly in the next few years than it has recently but recovery in the labor market will take some time.
CBO projects that the economy will grow more rapidly from 2014 to 2017—at an average rate of about 3 percent a year—than it did in 2013. But the unemployment rate will decline only gradually, finally dropping below 6.0 percent in 2017.
Revenues are projected to continue rebounding from a post-recession low of 14.6 percent of GDP in 2009 and 2010—rising to 18.2 percent in 2015. They are projected to stay between 18.0 percent and 18.4 percent of GDP from 2016 through 2024.
Under current law, outlays for Social Security, major health care programs, and net interest will grow over the coming decade, CBO estimates, while spending for other programs will decline relative to the size of the economy.
How will the labor market evolve? How rapidly will potential and actual output grow? What will be the paths of inflation and interest rates? Director Doug Elmendorf addressed these and other questions about CBO's outlook for the economy.