CRFB

The White House released the budget for FY 2009 today. The budget assumes revenues of $2.7 trillion, expenditures of $3.1 trillion, and a deficit of $407 billion in 2009. Our initial impressions of the budget are...

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The Congressional Budget Office released its new January baseline today. Assuming current laws and policies, the CBO forecasts that in FY 2008, revenues will total $2.7 trillion, expenditures will be $2.9 trillion, the deficit will be $219 billion (up from $163 billion in 2007), and the on-budget deficit will be $414 billion. As a share of GDP, revenues will be 18.7%, expenditures will be 20.2%, the deficit will be 1.5%, and the on-budget deficit will be 2.9%.

For the full… more

Congress appears poised to move forward with a fiscal stimulus package. In theory, a mixture of monetary and fiscal policy is generally most appropriate to help a slowing economy; in practice however, fiscal policy becomes politicized so easily that it is often ineffective, and is sometimes even counterproductive. Too often in the past, stimulus bills have been poorly timed, poorly targeted, and larded up with unrelated items. If Congress moves forward with a stimulus package, the Committee for Responsible Federal… more

The new fiscal year began on Oct. 1, without a single appropriations bill completed. Instead, operations are being funded by a continuing resolution (CR) that sets discretionary funding at current levels and is in place through November 16. The measure also temporarily extended some programs that were set to expire at fiscal year-end including the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), food stamps, and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Congress also increased the debt limit by $850 billion. The increase should… more

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. I have been asked to comment on the merits of reestablishing the statutory PAYGO law. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. It is a privilege to appear before this Committee.

I am the President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Our Co-Chairs are Bill Frenzel and Leon Panetta and our Board is composed of past Directors of the Office of Management and Budget, the Congressional Budget… more

Now that the House and Senate have passed their budget resolutions, they will begin the process of trying to resolve outstanding difference in conference. The two resolutions are quite similar to each other, though they are substantially different from what the President has proposed. It appears likely that the differences will be able to be worked out in conference and the budget passed in a timely manner.

The House and the Senate should be applauded for sticking… more

Our first impressions of the President’s just-submitted FY 2008 budget are:

We are pleased the president is embracing the goal of a balanced budget, but it is important to note the following:

While the budget shows the deficit declining in each year and reaching surplus in 2012, the net effect of the policies in the budget would worsen the fiscal picture by $474 billion over five years.

Important Administration priorities are not accounted for (realistic out-year war costs and fixing the Alternative… more

You have heard us say it before and we will say it again: Budget rules alone cannot do the heavy lifting required to address the nation's fiscal challenges. One could argue that focusing on budget reform is a diversion from the issues that should be getting Members' attention -- the revenue and spending policy changes to bring the short- and long-term budget back into balance. But given the polarized partisan environment and that it is an election year, improvements to… more

The President’s budget projects a decline in the deficit from $423 billion in FY2005 (3.2% of GDP) to $205 billion in FY 2011 (1.2% of GDP). The President hasproposed further savings in mandatory spending this year—a positive step.However, the proposed savings in mandatory spending programs and the cuts innon-defense discretionary spending programs would be more than offset by the taxcuts and other increases in spending. Though the deficit is projected to decreaseunder the proposed… more

Although being a budget watchdog generally requires a healthy dose of skepticism, recent months have provided reasons for cautious optimism. The sticker shock associated with the costs of responding to Hurricane Katrina on top of large structural deficits appears to have made the nation’s fiscal health a higher priority for policymakers and the public.

After four years of tax cuts and spending increases enacted with little concern for their budgetary impact, talk of budget offsets has returned to the legislative process. Congress is on the verge of… more