![]() Several times per year, CBO issues a "budget baseline" that projects taxes and spending over a ten-year period. What is the CBO Baseline and how is it constructed? CBO also provides a vital role in enforcement as its scores and estimates are used to ensure Members of Congress don't violate various budgetary rules meant to curb increases in the deficit. And perhaps most importantly, CBO is a truly nonpartisan institution whose estimates and scores are viewed as unbiased and objective.ĬBO's unbiased and thorough modeling allows Congress to exercise its power of the purse without relying on the executive branch's estimates and assistance (or lack thereof). Just as baseball players don't call their own balls and strikes, CBO ensures that policymakers are all negotiating from a common set of facts and numbers – not each using their own estimates.ĬBO's estimates are generated by a highly regarded team of economists and analysts using some of the most sophisticated models in the world. In addition to issuing baselines and official cost estimates of legislation, CBO also provides technical assistance to legislators and budget writers, publishes detailed economic and program-by-program budgetary projections, re-estimates the President's budget using their own models and assumptions, reports on the nation's long-term fiscal outlook, regularly offers options to reduce the deficit and adjust various tax and spending program, and issues numerous reports on a variety of economic and budgetary topics.ĬBO does not offer any explicit policy recommendations, nor do they endorse or oppose any legislative proposals.ĭuring the legislative process, CBO plays the vital role as the neutral scorekeeper. ![]() Its primary role is to issue projections of federal spending, revenue, deficits, and debt and then use this "baseline" as a neutral benchmark to score the budgetary implications of legislative proposals. Though CBO technically answers to the budget committees, it is effectively an independent legislative agency. Prior to its creation, Congress had to rely on the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for fiscal analysis of its proposals by creating CBO, Congress could have its own neutral arbiter of the President's proposals as well as their own. The Congressional Budget Office was established by the 1974 Budget Act to serve as a nonpartisan scorekeeper that estimates the effects of legislation on the federal budget. Where can I find CBO's budget reports and cost estimates?.Can everyone access CBO's models and data used to come up with the estimates and the baseline?. ![]() How does CBO score health care legislation?. ![]()
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