Papers
View our recurring reports, which summarize and analyze the most important regular federal budget releases and reports.
Analysis of the 2020 Social Security Trustees' Report
Today, the Social Security Trustees released their annual report, showing that Social Security faces a precarious and worsening financial situation –...
CBO’s Analysis of the President’s FY 2021 Budget
Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its analysis of the President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 budget using its own assumptions to...
Choices for Financing Medicare for All
Proposals to adopt a single-payer health care system – commonly called Medicare for All – have become increasingly popular. Such proposals, which...
ARCHIVE: Budget Offsets Bank
Note (7/14/2022): This analysis is now out of date. We released an updated version of this analysis, available here, which includes updated options...
Budget Resolution Principles for Fiscal Year 2021
The Congressional budget resolution should establish national priorities in a responsible manner. Congress should follow these principles to craft a...
Primary Care: Estimating Democratic Candidates’ Health Plans
Senator Bernie Sanders released a new set of proposals to offset the cost of his health care plan this week. Based on these new proposals, we have...
Congress Increasingly Fails to Budget
The Congressional budget process calls for an annual budget resolution to make explicit the tradeoffs between discretionary spending, direct spending...
Analysis of the President’s FY 2021 Budget
The Trump Administration released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 budget proposal today, outlining the President’s tax and spending priorities over the next...
Analysis of CBO’s Budget and Economic Outlook (January 2020)
Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its January 2020 Budget and Economic Outlook, projecting the return of trillion-dollar deficits...
ARCHIVE: Primary Care: Estimating Leading Democratic Candidates’ Health Plans
Note (2/26/2020): This analysis is now out of date. We released an updated version of this analysis, available here, which includes updated offsets...
Q&A: Everything You Should Know About Government Shutdowns
The fiscal year began on Oct. 1, 2019, and Congress has enacted none of 12 appropriations bills setting discretionary spending levels. Lawmakers have...
Letter to Senate Budget Committee: Advance Bipartisan Budget Improvements
Below is a letter sent today from Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget president Maya MacGuineas to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi...