This morning I'm testifying on climate change before the Committee on Ways and Means in the House of Representatives.
CBO Blog
I spoke today at the 10th anniversary of the Center for Health Policy (CHP) and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research (PCOR) at Stanford University. The webcast of the lecture is available here.
As a follow-up to my previous post on CBO's estimate of the subsidy cost for extending government loans to automobile firms, I thought it might be useful to highlight the deferment feature of the authorized program, which has a significant effect on the estimated subsidy. In particular, under the program, borrowers could defer payments of principal and interest for up to five years after putting into operation the new or modified plant funded by the loan.
The emergence of H5N1, or "avian flu," motivated the Department of Health and Human Services' 2005 plan to prepare for and combat an influenza pandemic. Three years ago domestic manufacturers were unable to rapidly produce enough vaccine to protect the more than 300 million people living in the United States. That remains the case today. With current technology, a pandemic could circle the globe more quickly than vaccines could be produced.
Last year, the Congress authorized the Department of Energy to make $25 billion in loans to auto manufacturing firms and suppliers of automotive components. Manufacturers could use those loans to reequip or establish facilities to produce "advanced technology vehicles" that would meet certain emissions and fuel economy standards; component suppliers could borrow funds to retool or build facilities to produce parts for such vehicles.
Tim Taylor has always struck me as wise. And not just because of this section from his most recent "Recommendations for Further Reading" in The Journal of Economic Perspectives: CBO and the Health Care System Our national debate over reform of the nations health care system would be vastly improved if all participants familiarized themselves with recent Congressional Budget Office reports on the subject. Here are some examples: The Long-Term Outlook for Health Care Spending describes factors that will drive health care costs over the next 75 years.
CBO released the annual summer update to the Budget and Economic Outlook for Fiscal Years 2008 to 2018 today. (Today's report updates the Budget and Economic Outlook published in January 2008.)
CBO released its Monthly Budget Review today. CBO estimates that the federal budget deficit was $486 billion in the first 11 months of the fiscal year, $212 billion more than the shortfall recorded over the same period last year. CBO anticipates that the government will realize a surplus in September, stemming from quarterly payments of estimated income taxes. The result will be a deficit in the vicinity of $400 billion for the fiscal year.
Today we released a paper on updated long-term projections for Social Security. (Our last long-term projection for social security was included in the December 2007 Long-Term Budget Outlook.) As CBO has highlighted in previous reports, the number of Social Security beneficiaries will grow considerably as the baby boomers become eligible for retirement benefits. Absent legislative changes, spending for the program will therefore climb substantially and exceed the programs revenues.
I recently gave a talk at the Retirement Research Consortium conference on the behavioral economics lessons gleaned from retirement research and how those lessons may be applicable to other pressing policy discussions. (I blogged about it here). In that speech I argued that the full benefit age seems to have a signaling effect on social security claiming behavior. The webcast of the speech is available here.