CBO Blog

CBO requests appropriations of $75.8 million for fiscal year 2026. The requested amount is an increase of $5.8 million, or 8.2 percent, above the funding provided this year.

CBO’s Director, Phillip Swagel, testifies before the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch.

The federal budget deficit totaled $1.3 trillion in the first half of fiscal year 2025, CBO estimates. That amount is $245 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year.

In this report, the latest in a quarterly series, CBO highlights its recent publications and summarizes its work in progress.

As required by law, CBO reports on whether appropriations enacted for the current fiscal year have exceeded the statutory caps on discretionary funding. In CBO’s estimation, they have not, and a sequestration will not be required for 2025.

Extending the 10-year budget projections it published on January 17, 2025, CBO projects that federal debt held by the public, boosted by sustained deficits, will grow far beyond any previously recorded level over the next 30 years.

CBO estimates that if the debt limit remains unchanged, the government’s ability to borrow using established "extraordinary measures" will probably be exhausted in August or September 2025.

View CBO’s budget infographics to see how much the federal government spent and took in during fiscal year 2024, as well as broader trends in the budget over the past few decades.

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.