Transparency at CBO: Plans for 2026 and a Review of 2025
Report
In 2026, CBO will promote transparency by publishing new modeling tools, source code, and technical documentation and by explaining the methods it uses for its analyses in several topic areas.
Transparency is a top priority for the Congressional Budget Office, and the agency continues to bolster its efforts to be transparent. Those efforts are intended to promote a thorough understanding of CBO's work, help people gauge how estimates might change if policies or circumstances differed, and enhance the credibility of the agency's analyses and processes.
In 2026, the agency will undertake a variety of activities aimed at fostering transparency, such as the following:
Providing insight into the basis of its analyses by publishing new modeling tools, source code, and technical documentation; and
Explaining the methods it uses for its analyses in several topic areas, including national security, health care, taxation, energy, housing, and economic projections.
Those efforts will build on CBO's activities in 2025, which included testifying before Congressional committees and answering Members' questions, releasing data, publishing modeling tools and code, evaluating the accuracy of the agency's estimates, comparing current and previous estimates, estimating the effects of policy alternatives, characterizing the uncertainty of estimates, creating data visualizations, and conducting outreach.
