The Budget and Economic Outlook

This week President Bush released his proposal for government spending, taxation, and borrowing for fiscal years 2008-2017. Congress will now have its say, and the final fate of those proposals awaits the outcome of the political push and pull that defines our democracy. As part of that process, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will eventually provide projections of the budgetary impact of the president’s proposals, as well as the budget resolutions that eventually clear Congress. But we can get some preliminary hints by looking at some of the CBO’s baseline estimates, released on January 24, of what things look like under current law.