Budget

View CBO’s budget infographics to see how much the federal government spent and took in during fiscal year 2022, as well as broader trends in the budget over the past few decades.

In CBO’s projections, the federal deficit totals $1.4 trillion in 2023 and averages $2.0 trillion per year from 2024 to 2033. Real GDP growth comes to a halt in 2023 and then rebounds, averaging 2.4 percent from 2024 to 2027.

CBO issues a volume describing 17 policy options that would each reduce the federal budget deficit by more than $300 billion over the next 10 years or, in the case of Social Security options, have a comparably large effect in later decades.

CBO issues a volume that contains short descriptions of 59 policy options that would each reduce the federal budget deficit by less than $300 billion over the next 10 years.

CBO projects the budgetary effects of automatic stabilizers—as well as the size of deficits without them—from 2022 to 2032 and provides historical estimates of the stabilizers’ effects since 1972.

Under the President’s proposals, the cumulative deficit for the 2023-2032 period would be $2.6 trillion smaller than it is in CBO’s baseline projections because revenues would be higher and spending lower.

In this report, CBO examines the mechanisms by which quantitative easing — large asset purchasing programs conducted by the Federal Reserve— affects the federal budget deficit.

The U.S. faces a challenging fiscal outlook according to CBO's extended baseline projections, which show budget deficits and federal debt held by the public growing steadily in relation to gross domestic product over the next three decades.

To show how variations in economic conditions might affect its budget projections, CBO analyzed how the budget might change if values of four key economic variables differed from those in the agency’s forecast.

This paper presents a practical method for assessing the uncertainty of long-term economic projections.

CBO developed a Markov-switching model to help incorporate asymmetric dynamics into macroeconomic projections and cost estimates that require simulations of the national unemployment rate.

This guide briefly explains—in plain language—the differences between some common budgetary terms.

From the end of 2008 to 2019, the amount of federal debt held by the public nearly tripled. This report describes federal debt, various ways to measure it, CBO’s projections for the coming decade, and the consequences of its growth.