CBO Blog

CBO will publish The Long-Term Budget Outlook: 2025 to 2055 on Thursday, March 27, at 2 p.m. EDT.

To show how variations in economic conditions might affect its budget projections, CBO analyzed how revenues, outlays, and deficits might change if the values of key economic variables differed from those in the agency’s forecast.

Eric J. Labs, Senior Analyst for Naval Forces and Weapons in CBO’s National Security Division, testifies before the House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces.

The federal budget deficit totaled $1.1 trillion in the first five months of fiscal year 2025, CBO estimates. That amount is $319 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year.

CBO estimates that the effects on mandatory spending and revenues of laws enacted in the second session of the 118th Congress will increase outlays and decrease revenues from 2024 to 2034, which will increase the deficit by $237 billion.

CBO's Director, Phillip Swagel, discusses his upcoming and recent speaking engagements about the agency’s projections for the federal budget and the U.S. economy and the overall fiscal outlook.

Fifty years ago today, CBO began its service to the Congress and the country. Much has changed since then, but the agency’s mission—to provide objective, nonpartisan information to support the Congressional budget process—remains the same.

CBO’s cost estimates, which represent the agency’s best assessment of a bill’s budgetary effects, can be subject to uncertainty arising from various sources. CBO describes how it addresses six common sources of uncertainty.

The federal budget deficit totaled $838 billion in the first four months of fiscal year 2025, CBO estimates. That amount is $306 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year.

CBO provides additional details about the economic forecast it published on January 17, 2025, in The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2025 to 2035.