Each year, CBO issues a set of long-term budget projections—often referred to as the extended baseline projections—that provide estimates of what federal debt, deficits, spending, and revenues would be over the next 30 years if current laws generally remained unchanged. Relative to the size of the economy, federal debt is higher in this year’s projections than it was in last year’s projections. The economic disruption caused by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and the federal government’s response to it contribute significantly to that difference.
