Report: Analysis of CBO's Updated Budget and Economic Forecast

Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released updated budget and economic projections for the coming decade, showing today’s record-high debt levels continuing to rise over the next decade. The report focuses on a “current law” baseline, which assumes policymakers break with the current practice of deficit-financing extensions of various expired or expiring policies. Even under this somewhat optimistic scenario, CBO shows the following:

• In nominal dollars, deficits will grow from $506 billion in 2014 to $960 billion in 2024, and debt will grow from $12.8 trillion to $20.6 trillion.
• As a percent of GDP, debt will stabilize around its post-World War II record high of 74 percent through 2020, before rising to above 77 percent of GDP by 2024.
• Deficits will remain below 3 percent of GDP through 2018, but rise to 3.6 percent of GDP by 2024.
• Federal revenues will stabilize at about 18 percent of GDP, while spending will grow from 20.4 percent of GDP in 2014 to 21.8 percent in 2024.
• The fastest growing part of the budget is interest payments, which will rise from 1.3 to 3.0 percent of GDP by 2024. Spending on the major health and retirement programs will grow from 9.8 to 11.5 percent of GDP.
• Compared with prior estimates, CBO expects the economy to be somewhat weaker, mostly due to 2014 growth being 1.2 percentage points lower.
• Compared with prior projections, CBO expects the debt to be about $400 billion lower in 2024, reaching 77.2 percent of GDP rather than 78 percent.
• If extrapolated forward, we find CBO would project debt to exceed the size of the economy before 2040 and reach nearly 150 percent of GDP by 2060.

CBO continues to show an unsustainable outlook for federal debt, even under current law. Under CBO’s Alternative Fiscal Scenario, where Congress extends various expiring tax provisions, continues “doc fixes,” and eliminates sequestration, debt would reach 85.7 percent of GDP in 2024 instead of 77.2 percent. Lawmakers will therefore need to strictly abide by pay-as-you-go rules and take steps to control the growth of entitlement spending, while enacting other tax and spending reforms to put debt on a downward path over the long run.

See the full paper below, or download it here.