In recent years, the Congress has shown interest in powering some of the Navy’s future destroyers and amphibious warfare ships with nuclear rather than conventional (petroleum-based) fuel. At the request of the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces of the House Armed Services Committee, CBO has estimated—in a study released today—the difference between the costs of powering those new surface ships with nuclear reactors and equipping them with conventional engines.
CBO’s Findings
The federal government incurred a budget deficit of $871 billion in the first seven months of fiscal year 2011, CBO estimates in its latest Monthly Budget Review, roughly $70 billion more than the deficit incurred in the same period in 2010. That deficit would have been higher if not for the larger-than-expected payments with individual income tax returns filed near the end of the spring tax-filing season.
The recent financial crisis and economic recession have left many states and localities with extraordinary budgetary difficulties for the next few years, but structural shortfalls in their pension plans pose a problem that is likely to endure for much longer.The recent financial crisis and economic recession have left many states and localities with extraordinary budgetary difficulties for the next few years, but structural shortfalls in their pension plans pose a problem that is likely to endure for much longer.
The Department of Defense (DoD) broadly defines “readiness” as the ability of U.S. military forces to fight and meet the demands of the National Military Strategy (which describes the armed forces’ role in achieving national security objectives). DoD typically cites the readiness of military units to perform their missions in wartime as the primary justification for its operation and maintenance (O&M) budget requests to the Congress.
On Wednesday I spoke to students and faculty at the University of Maryland’s Public Policy School about the challenges of restraining federal health care spending. My remarks drew heavily on my April 4 presentation to the World Health Care Congress (see my blog post from that day), as well as on CBO’s analysis of Congressman Ryan’s budget proposal released late last week.
Each year, after the President releases his annual budget request in February, CBO analyzes the budget proposals and, using its own estimating procedures and assumptions, projects what the federal budget would look like over the next 10 years if those proposals were adopted. CBO usually provides those results in two parts: First, the agency presents an examination of the proposals’ budgetary impact without considering their effects on the economy.
The federal government incurred a budget deficit of $830 billion in the first six months of fiscal year 2011, CBO estimates in its latest Monthly Budget Review—$113 billion more than the shortfall recorded in the same period last year.
In response to a request from House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, CBO has conducted a long-term analysis of a proposal to substantially change federal payments under the Medicare and Medicaid programs, eliminate the subsidies to be provided through new insurance exchanges under last years major health care legislation, leave Social Security as it would be under current law, and set paths for all other federal spending (excluding interest) and federal tax revenues at specified growth rates or percentages of gross domestic product (GDP).
I spoke this morning to the World Health Care Congress about the challenge of restraining federal health care spending. (Sorry, I didnt use slides.)
I began by explaining that growth in spending on health care programs is one of the central fiscal challenges facing the federal government:
In 1995, the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) was enacted to ensure that the Congress receives information, during the legislative process, about proposed federal requirements on state, local, and tribal governments and on various entities in the private sector. As required by UMRA, CBO prepares “mandate statements” for bills that are approved by authorizing committees. In those statements, CBO identifies requirements that would meet UMRA’s definition of a federal mandate and estimates whether the costs of such mandates would exceed annual dollar thresholds specified in that law.
