Is CBO "Always Wrong" Because It Doesn't Understand Growth?
In dismissing projected trillion-dollar deficits, National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow recently claimed that one should "never believe the...
Blog
Welcome to our blog – The Bottom Line, where you’ll find up-to-date commentary and analysis on the most important news in the fiscal world. Below is a list of our blog posts.
Apr 20, 2018 | Budget Process
Goldwein and Moller: How Congress Cheats with Our Money — and How We Can Stop It
Marc Goldwein is senior vice president and senior policy director and Zach Moller is a senior policy analyst at the Committee for a Responsible...
Apr 19, 2018 | Budgets & Projections
IMF: US is the Only Advanced Economy With Debt Rising
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a new report yesterday projecting that debt as a share of GDP will decline over the next five years for...
Apr 19, 2018 | Budgets & Projections
What If Interest Rates Are 1 Point Higher? $1.9 Trillion in Extra Costs
Interest costs are the fastest growing part of the budget, with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projecting interest payments will more than...
Apr 16, 2018 | Budgets & Projections
More Than Half of Next Year's Deficit is Congress's Fault
The budget deficit will approach the trillion-dollar mark next year, according to recent projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Well...
Apr 13, 2018 | Budgets & Projections
Maya MacGuineas: Welcome to the woeful world of free-lunch economics
Maya MacGuineas is president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and head of the Campaign to Fix the Debt. She recently wrote an...
Apr 12, 2018 | Budgets & Projections
Balancing the Budget Would Take $7 Trillion to $10 Trillion in Savings
The worsening budget outlook means that meeting certain fiscal goals is now much more difficult than it was previously. We estimate that balancing...
Apr 12, 2018 | Budgets & Projections
Debt Could Reach Record Levels in a Decade
The Congessional Budget Office's (CBO) latest budget projections released this week show how much worse recent legislation has made the fiscal...
Apr 11, 2018 | Budgets & Projections
Factchecking the Senate Budget Committee Hearing with CBO
At least two claims in Wednesday's Senate Budget Committee hearing with Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Keith Hall merit fact checking....
Apr 9, 2018 | Budgets & Projections
New From CBO: Trillion-Dollar Deficits Will Return In Two Years
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released its latest baseline projections – the first since last June and the first to incorporate the...
Apr 6, 2018 | Budgets & Projections
Baseline 101: Anticipating CBO's Updated Budget Outlook
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will release its 2018 Budget and Economic Outlook on April 9, which is likely to project sustained trillion-...
Apr 6, 2018 | Other Spending
Did the Last Farm Bill Really Save $100 Billion?
The 2014 farm bill is set to expire on September 30, at which point lawmakers will need to renew and perhaps reform farm subsidy and nutrition...
Apr 5, 2018 | Other Spending
The Omnibus Spent More than Either Side Asked For
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA) increased this year's discretionary spending caps by a whopping $143 billion, paving the way for a 13 percent...
Mar 29, 2018 | Budgets & Projections
Omnibus Spends $110 Billion Above New Budget Caps
Last week's omnibus spending bill enacted a 13 percent increase in base appropriations, spending virtually all of the additional $143 billion allowed...
Mar 29, 2018 | Budget Process
House Budget Committee Concludes CBO Oversight Series
The House Budget Committee held its final hearing in its series on oversight of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on March 14. Committee for a...
Mar 26, 2018 | Budget Process
William Hoagland: Congress Faces Challenging Times for American Fiscal Responsibility
G. William Hoagland is Senior Vice President at the Bipartisan Policy Center and member of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. He...
Mar 23, 2018 | Other Spending
Appropriations Watch: FY 2018
Last updated 3/23/2018. Congress has completed action on omnibus appropriations legislation. The House and Senate passed the omnibus bill, and...
Mar 22, 2018 | Budget Process
Rudolph Penner: Instead Of Seeking Budget Process Reforms, Congress Should Cut Spending And Raise Taxes
Dr. Rudolph Penner was the director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1983 to 1987, and he is an Institute Fellow at the Urban ...
Where Does the Higher Spending in the Omnibus Go?
Policymakers recently announced an omnibus appropriations bill to fund the government for the remaining six months of Fiscal Year 2018. The bill...
Mar 21, 2018 | Budgets & Projections
Rising Rates Could Further Balloon Interest Spending
Note (5/15/2018): This blog was published before CBO's April 2018 baseline, which provides official estimates of the amount of interest that...
