Testimony on the Work of the Congressional Budget Office

The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 instituted a formal process through which the Congress could develop, coordinate, and enforce its own budgetary priorities and created legislative institutions to implement the new Congressional budget process: the House and Senate Budget Committees to oversee execution of the budget process and the Congressional Budget Office to provide the budget committees and the Congress with objective, impartial information about budgetary and economic issues. CBO’s work follows processes specified in that law or developed by the agency in concert with the budget committees and the Congressional leadership. The agency’s chief responsibility under that law is to help the budget committees with the matters under their jurisdiction. It also supports other Congressional committees—particularly the Appropriations, Ways and Means, and Finance Committees, as required by the Budget Act—and the Congressional leadership.

To fulfill its mission to serve the Congress, CBO does the following:

• Prepares reports on the outlook for the economy;
• Analyzes trends and recent developments related to federal spending and revenues and constructs budget projections for the next 10 years and the longer term;
• Estimates the effects of the President’s budgetary proposals and numerous alternative policy choices on the budget and the economy;
• Estimates the cost of legislative proposals—which involves providing formal cost estimates for all bills reported by committees of the House and Senate, many more informal cost estimates while legislation is being developed, estimates of the cost of all appropriation bills, and estimates of the cost of numerous amendments as legislation is considered by the House and Senate;
• Estimates the cost of intergovernmental and private-sector mandates in reported bills;
• Conducts policy studies of governmental activities, policy choices facing lawmakers, and other developments that have significant budgetary and economic impacts—which involves analyzing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, other benefit programs, national security issues, energy policy, environmental issues, tax policy, labor markets, education policy, housing policy, government credit programs, infrastructure, immigration policy, and many other topics; and
• Provides testimonies on a broad range of budget and economic issues.

In 2014, for example, CBO produced several hundred formal cost estimates and mandate statements, thousands of informal estimates, more than 100 “scorekeeping” tabulations for appropriation acts, and multiple budget projections and economic forecasts. In addition, the agency released several dozen analytic reports and working papers. (For some details, see the appendix.)

For fiscal year 2016, CBO has requested an appropriation of $47.3 million, an increase of $1.6 million, or 3.4 percent, from the $45.7 million provided to the agency for 2015. In the coming year, CBO will continue to be guided by its core values, seek to devote additional resources to macroeconomic analysis and health care issues, and focus on meeting three broad goals: continuing to provide the Congress with budget and economic information that is objective, insightful, and timely; presenting and explaining the methodology and results of CBO’s analyses clearly; and improving CBO’s internal management.