Observers often cite fraud as an important contributor to high health care spending, particularly in federal programs. This report describes how CBO estimates the budgetary effects of legislative proposals to reduce fraud in Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program...

CBO projects that, under current law, the federal budget deficit will fall to $468 billion in 2015 – 2.6 percent of GDP – and remain roughly stable, as a percentage of GDP, through 2018. After that, the gap between spending and revenues is projected to grow, raising the already high level of...

This report presents additional information about CBO’s long-term projections of revenues and outlays for Social Security and provides information on Social Security benefits and payroll taxes for people born in different years and at different earnings levels. CBO has made a number of changes...

CBO projects that the Department of Defense’s plans would cost an average of $47 billion per year more from 2015 through 2021 than would be provided under the limits established by the Budget Control Act. CBO’s estimate of costs for that period is $17 billion per year higher than DoD’s...

The Department of Defense's (DoD's) base budget increased by 31 percent (adjusted for inflation) between 2000 and 2014, mainly because of higher costs for military personnel and operation and maintenance. Adjusted to exclude inflation, funding for military personnel grew by 46 percent despite a...

Under budgetary paths, but not particular policies, specified in the 2016 budget resolution conference report, total debt would be smaller than in CBO’s baseline. Economic output would be lower in the next few years but higher thereafter.

CBO has analyzed the effects on the economy stemming from a set of paths for federal revenues and noninterest spending specified by Chairman Mike Enzi of the Senate Budget Committee and how those macroeconomic effects in turn would affect the federal budget.

Under the President’s proposed budget for 2016, CBO estimates, the federal budget deficit would decline from $486 billion in 2015 to $384 billion in 2016, but then climb in subsequent years, reaching $801 billion in 2025. Federal debt held by the public would remain in the vicinity of 72...

Under current law, CBO estimates the deficit will total $486 billion in 2015, about the same as in 2014. However, because the nation’s output has increased, the projected deficit for 2015 represents a slightly lower percentage of GDP—2.7 percent. If current laws generally remain unchanged,...

Under current law, as of March 16, the Treasury will be at the statutory borrowing limit and will need to use so-called extraordinary measures to continue raising cash. Those measures would probably be exhausted by October or November.