CBO Blog

  • The federal budget deficit was $1.8 trillion in fiscal year 2024, CBO estimates. The estimated deficit for 2024 was $139 billion more than the shortfall recorded during fiscal year 2023.

  • CBO estimates the budgetary effects of an illustrative policy that would authorize Medicare to cover anti-obesity medications. The policy would apply to all beneficiaries with obesity and some beneficiaries who are classified as overweight.

  • CBO's Director, Phillip Swagel, discusses his upcoming and recent presentations about the fiscal outlook and fiscal policy.

  • CBO describes how it selects and uses discount rates to produce estimates for a wide range of federal activities that can have budgetary effects far into the future.

  • CBO and JCT have estimated the effects on revenues and spending of many of the President’s budgetary proposals. This report builds on an earlier one that focused on the President’s proposals for discretionary spending.

  • CBO discusses prescription drug prices and approaches aimed at reducing those prices. Some of the approaches would cap prices or limit their growth, and other approaches would promote price competition or affect the flow of information.

  • CBO examines changes in family wealth from 1989 to 2022 using a measure of wealth that includes projected Social Security benefits. Over that period, family wealth was unevenly distributed, and wealth inequality increased.

  • CBO provides information about the amount of damage that could be reduced through spending for flood adaptations—projects aimed at preventing damage from flooding.

  • CBO discusses the outlook for housing starts over the next 30 years—that is, the number of new single-family and multifamily housing units on which construction will be started—and describes the methodology behind its projections.

  • CBO examines ways in which the federal government and private entities share the risk involved in various federal credit programs, including those related to home mortgages, small businesses, and project financing.