CBO Blog

This report examines some of the challenges U.S. forces might face in a conflict in the Baltic region or the South China Sea and options for mitigating those challenges by procuring and fielding ground-launched long-range missiles.

The federal budget deficit was $388 billion for the first four months of fiscal year 2020, CBO estimates, $78 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last year.

CBO has reduced its projections of corporate income tax receipts for the 2020–2029 period by $127 billion (or about 4 percent). That change from the agency’s August 2019 projections arose from several sources.

To show how the federal budget might be affected if economic conditions differed from those in its current economic forecast, CBO has developed “rules of thumb” that provide a sense of how changes in four key economic variables would affect revenues, outlays, and deficits.

CBO reports annually to the Congress on programs whose authorizations of appropriations have already expired or will expire during the current fiscal year.

This afternoon I briefed the press about the Congressional Budget Office’s new report, The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2020 to 2030. It shows deficits that are slightly larger over the next 10 years and notably larger over the next 30 years than those that CBO previously projected.

In CBO’s projections of the outlook under current law, deficits remain large by historical standards, federal debt grows to 98 percent of GDP by 2030, and the economy expands at an average annual rate of 1.7 percent from 2021 to 2030.

CBO examines the tax benefit of having dependents under current law in 2019 and 2026 and analyzes how three policy options that would simplify dependent-related tax provisions would affect that benefit.

CBO assesses whether public-private partnerships have resulted in projects being built more quickly or at a lower cost for taxpayers. CBO also examines whether partnerships that include private financing sped up project financing.

Each quarter, CBO provides information about its work in progress. As of January 8, the agency was working on 184 cost estimates for bills in addition to 33 analytic reports and working papers.