CBO Blog

  • In its May 2022 projections for fiscal year 2023, CBO overestimated revenues by 11 percent and underestimated outlays by 9 percent. CBO’s projection of the federal deficit for 2023 was less than the actual amount by 3.9 percent of GDP.

  • CBO compared the earnings, personal income, and household income of working-age male veterans who received disability payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs with those of veterans who did not receive such payments.

  • CBO examines the status, federal support, and future potential of carbon capture and storage—a process that removes carbon dioxide from the emissions of power plants and industrial facilities and stores it permanently underground.

  • The federal budget deficit totaled $383 billion in October and November 2023, the first two months of fiscal year 2024, CBO estimates. That amount is $47 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year.

  • To assess the full costs of federal loans and loan guarantees, CBO has developed a method for estimating the present value of the lifetime administrative costs of certain federal credit programs.

  • CBO estimates that eliminating the maintenance backlogs of roughly 20,000 buildings that the Navy uses and maintains in the United States would cost $17 billion. Renovating and modernizing the buildings would cost an additional $32 billion.

  • Julie Topoleski, CBO’s Director of Labor, Income Security, and Long-Term Analysis, testifies about CBO’s demographic projections before the Joint Economic Committee.

  • In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing federal response had significant effects on the distribution of household income. Income inequality before transfers and taxes increased, but inequality after transfers and taxes decreased.

  • CBO estimates the flood damage homes with federally backed mortgages are expected to face in multiyear periods centered on 2020 and 2050, reflecting the effects of climate change. The agency also analyzes where that damage is concentrated.

  • In fiscal year 2023, which ended on September 30, the federal budget deficit totaled nearly $1.7 trillion—an increase of $320 billion (or 23 percent) from the shortfall recorded in the previous year.