Explaining Analytical Methods
- Report
Federal Excise Tax Revenues
CBO describes excise taxes, examines trends in excise tax revenues, and provides information about the models it uses for its baseline projections of excise tax revenues.
- Working Paper
Key Methods That CBO Used to Estimate the Macroeconomic Effects of the 2025 Reconciliation Act: Working Paper 2026-01
The 2025 reconciliation act included a wide range of provisions that affect policies governing federal revenues and spending. This working paper describes the key methods that CBO used to estimate the law's macroeconomic effects.
- Report
Effects of the Surge in Immigration on State and Local Budgets in 2023
CBO estimates how the surge in immigration that began in 2021 affected state and local budgets in 2023. State and local tax revenues grew, but the costs of providing services grew more.
- Report
Business Tax Credits for Wind and Solar Power
CBO provides an overview of federal tax credits that support investment in wind and solar electric power. The agency also explains how it assesses the credits’ budgetary and economic effects and how its baseline reflects JCT’s revenue estimates.
- Report
Unemployment Insurance: Budgetary History and Projections
CBO examines trends in revenues and outlays associated with unemployment insurance and provides information about how CBO treats that program in its baseline projections and cost estimates.
- Report
Reconciling the Official Poverty Measure and CBO’s Distributional Analysis of Household Income
CBO examines how its method for analyzing the distribution of household income differs from the Census Bureau’s method for calculating the official poverty measure. The most important differences stem from what each method counts as income.
- Report
How Increased Use of Gene Therapy Treatment for Sickle Cell Disease Could Affect the Federal Budget
Gene therapies replace or modify disease-causing genes in human cells. In this report, CBO discusses how it would estimate the budgetary effects of policies that sought to increase the use of gene therapy treatment for sickle cell disease.
- Report
An Evaluation of CBO’s Projections of Deficits and Debt From 1984 to 2023
CBO assesses the quality of the baseline projections of deficits and debt that it has made each spring from 1984 to 2023.
- Blog Post
Additional Information About the Effects of Expiring Provisions of the 2017 Tax Act in CBO’s Baseline Projections
CBO’s Director describes how expiring provisions of the 2017 tax act affect the agency’s baseline projections and reviews some information that has become available since CBO first estimated the effects of the tax act in April 2018.
- Presentation
CBO’s Model for Estimating the Effects on New Investment of Deductions to Recover the Cost of Capital
CBO describes how it uses its capital tax model, called CapTax, to estimate the effects that changes in deductions to recover the cost of new investment have on the incentives to invest in capital.