Congressional Budget Office

CBO’s Contributions to Fiscal Transparency

8th Annual Meeting of OECD Parliamentary Budget Officials and Independent Fiscal Institutions

April 12, 2016

Robert Sunshine Deputy Director

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CBO provides analysis of budgetary and economic issues that is objective and impartial. The agency is strictly nonpartisan.

All of CBO’s official cost estimates and analytic reports are posted on its website.

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CBO Promotes Fiscal Transparency Through Its Many Products

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CBO produces a monthly report on budgetary developments for the current fiscal year.

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CBO produces detailed economic forecasts, usually twice a year, and compares them with those produced by other government agencies and private-sector economists.

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CBO prepares 10-year “baseline” budget projections, generally assuming that current laws governing taxes and spending remain in place.

Those projections are widely reported and widely used as a basis for discussions of budget policy.

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CBO prepares an analysis of the President’s proposed budget, using its own economic projections and estimating models (rather than the Administration’s).

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CBO also prepares 25-year budget projections, which more fully reflect long-term economic and demographic trends.

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Source: Congressional Budget Office, The 2015 Long-Term Budget Outlook (June 2015).

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To more clearly illuminate long-term demographic challenges, CBO prepares 75-year projections for the Social Security program.

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CBO also shows the effects of major tax preferences, which are not readily apparent in budget reports.

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CBO strives to present budget information in ways that are easy to understand.

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Source: Congressional Budget Office, “The Federal Budget in 2015” (infographic, January 2016).

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CBO Posts Its Projections

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