Tag: Congressional Budget Office (CBO)

Bad News from the Congressional Budget Office

In 1974, Congress created the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The CBO was given the responsibility of providing Congress with impartial economic analysis as it makes decisions about the federal government’s budget.  One of the most widely discussed reports the CBO issues is the Budget and Economic Outlook. The report provides forecasts of future federal budget deficits and changes in the federal government’s debt that the budget deficits will cause. The CBO’s budget and debt forecasts rely on the agency’s forecasts of future economic conditions and assumes that Congress will make no changes to current laws regarding taxing and spending. (We discuss this assumption further below.)

 On February 15, the CBO issued its latest forecasts. The forecasts showed a deterioration in the federal government’s financial situation compared with the forecasts the CBO had issued in May 2022. (You can find the full report here.) Last year, the CBO forecast that the federal government’s cumulative budget deficit from 2023 through 2032 would be $15.7 trillion. The CBO is now forecasting the cumulative deficit over the same period will be $18.8 trillion. The three main reason for the increase in the forecast deficits are:

1. Congress has increased spending—particularly on benefits for military veterans.

2) Cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security and other government programs have increased as a result of higher inflation.

3) Interest rates on Treasury debt have increased as a result of higher inflation.

 The CBO forecasts that federal debt held by the public will increase from 98 percent of GDP in 2023 to 118 percent in 2033 and eventually to 198 percent in 2053. Note that economists prefer to measure the size of the debt relative to GDP rather than in as absolute dollar amounts for two main reasons: First, measuring debt relative to GDP makes it easier to see how debt has changed over time in relation to the growth of the economy. Second, the size of debt relative to GDP makes it easier to gauge the burden that the debt imposes on the economy. When debt grows more slowly than the economy, as measured by GDP, crowding effects are likely to be relatively small. We discuss crowding out in Macroeconomics, Chapter 10, Section 10.2 and Chapter 16, Section 16. 5 (Economics, Chapter 20, Section 20.2 and Chapter 26, Section 26.5).  The two most important factors driving increases in the ratio of debt to GDP are increased spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and increased interest payments on the debt.

 The following figure is reproduced from the CBO report. It shows the ratio of debt to GDP with actual values for the period 1900-2022 and projected values for the period 2023-2053. Note that the only other time the ratio of debt to GDP rose above 100 percent was in 1945 and 1946 as a result of the large increases in federal government spending required to fight World War II.

The increased deficits and debt over the next 10 years are being driven by government spending increasing as a percentage of GDP, while government revenues (which are mainly taxes) are roughly stable as a percentage of GDP. The following figure from the report shows actual federal outlays and revenues as a percentage of GDP for the period 1973-2022 and projected outlays and revenues for the period 2023-2033. Note that from 1973 to 2022, outlays averaged 21.0 percent of GDP and revenues averaged 17.4 percent of GDP, resulting in an average deficit of 3.6 percent of GDP. By 2033, outlays are forecast to rise to 24.9 percent of GDP–well above the 1973-2022 average–whereas revenues are forecast to be only 18.1 percent, for a forecast deficit of 6.8 percent of GDP.

The increase in outlays is driven primarily by increases in mandatory spending, mainly spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans’ benefits and increases in interest payments on the debt. The CBO’s forecast assumes that discretionary spending will gradually decline over the next 10 years as percentage of GDP. Discretionary spending includes federal spending on defense and all other government programs apart from those, like Social Security, where spending is mandated by law.

To avoid the persistent deficits, and increasing debt that results, Congress would need to do one (or a combination) of the following:

1. Reduce the currently scheduled increases in mandatory spending (in political discussions this alternative is referred to as entitlement reform because entitlements is another name for manadatory spending).

2. Decrease discretionary spending, the largest component of which is defense spending.

3. Increases taxes.

There doesn’t appear to be majority support in Congress for taking any of these steps.

The CBO’s latest forecast seems gloomy, but may actually understate the likely future increases in the federal budget deficit and federal debt. The CBO’s forecast assumes that future outlays and taxes will occur as indicated in current law. For example, the forecast assumes that many of the tax cuts Congress passed in 2017 will expire in 2025 as stated in current law. Many political observers doubt that Congress will allow the tax cuts to expire as scheduled because to do so would result in increases in individual income taxes for most people. (Here is a recent article in the Washington Post that discusses this point. A subscription may be required to access the full article.) The CBO also assumes that defense spending will not increase beyond what is indicated by current law. Many political observers believe that, in fact, Congress may feel compelled to substantially increase defense spending as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the potential military threat posed by China.

The CBO forecast also assumes that the U.S. economy won’t experience a recession between 2023 and 2033, which is possible but unlikely. If the economy does experience a recession, federal outlays for unemployment insurance and other programs will increase and federal personal and corporate income tax revenues will fall. The CBO’s forecast also assumes that the interest rate on the 10-year Treasury note will be under 4 percent and that the federal funds rate will be under 3 percent (interest rates on short-term Treasury debt move closely with changes in the federal funds rate). If interest rates turn out to be higher than these forecasts, the federal government’s interest payments will increase, further increasing the deficit and the debt.

In short, the federal government is clearly facing the most difficult budgetary situation since World War II.

The Congressional Budget Office’s Changing Forecasts of U.S. Economic Growth

There are many macroeconomic forecasts. Some forecasts are made by private economists, including those who work for Wall Street Investment firms. Other forecasts are made by economists who work for the government. Perhaps the most widely used macroeconomic forecasts are those published by economists who work for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The CBO is a nonpartisan agency within the federal government that provides estimates of the economic effects of government policies as part of the process by which Congress prepares the federal budget. One important aspect of the CBO’s work is to estimate future federal government budget deficits.

To forecast the size of future deficits, the CBO needs to forecast growth in key macroeconomic variables, including GDP. Faster growth in the U.S. economy should result in faster growth in federal tax revenues and slower growth in federal government transfer payments, including payments the federal government makes under the unemployment insurance system, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. When revenues grow faster than expenditures, the federal budget deficit shrinks.

The CBO’s forecasts of potential GDP provide perhaps the most best known projections of the future economic growth of the U.S. economy. The CBO calculates its forecasts of potential GDP by forecasting the variables that potential GDP depends on. As we’ve seen in Macroeconomics, Chapters 10 (Economics, Chapters 20), the two key variables in determining the growth in real GDP are the growth in labor productivity—the ratio of real GDP to the quantity of labor—and the growth of the labor force.

How well has the CBO forecast future U.S. economic growth? Or, equivalently, how well has the CBO forecast potential GDP. Each year the CBO publishes forecasts of potential GDP for the following 10 years and for longer periods—typically 40 or 50 years. Claudia Sahm, an economic consultant and opinion writer and formerly an economist at the Federal Reserve and the White House, has noted that the CBO’s 10-year forecasts of potential GDP have not been good forecasts of the actual growth of real GDP. Over the past 15 years, the CBO has also carried out surprisingly large downward revisions of its forecasts of potential GDP.

The figure below is similar to one prepared by Sahm and shows the forecasts of potential GDP the CBO published in 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020 for the following 10 years. (For Sahm’s Twitter thread discussing her figure, click HERE.) That is, in 2005, the CBO issued a forecast of potential GDP for the years 2005–2015. In 2010, the CBO issued a forecast of potential GDP for the years 2010–2020, and so on. Note that for ease of comparison, all GDP values in the figure are set equal to a value of 100 in 2005.

Each straight line on the chart represents the CBO’s forecast of potential GDP over the 10 years following the year in which the forecast was published. For example, the top blue line represents the forecasts the CBO made in 2005 of the values of potential GDP for the years 2005 to 2015. The bottom blue line shows the actual values of real GDP for the years from 2005 to 2020. Note how at each five year interval, the CBO’s forecasts of potential GDP shifted down.

We can look at a few examples of how far off the CBO’s projections were. For instance, if the economy had grown as rapidly between 2005 and 2015 as the CBO forecast it would in 2005, real GDP would have been about 15 percent higher than it actually was. In other words, the U.S. economy would have produced about $2.5 trillion more in goods and services than it actually did. Similarly, if the economy had grown as rapidly between 2010 and 2019 as the CBO forecast it would in 2010, real GDP in 2019 would have been about 7.5 percent (or about $1.5 trillion) higher than it actually was. 

Why has the CBO persistently overestimated the future growth rate of the U.S. economy? The main source of error has been the CBO’s overestimation of the growth in labor force productivity. They have also slightly overestimated the growth of the labor force. Claudia Sahm has a more basic criticism of the CBO’s approach to estimating potential GDP. She argues that if real GDP grows slowly during a period, perhaps because monetary and fiscal policies are insufficiently expansionary, the CBO will incorporate the lower actual real GDP values when it updates its forecasts of potential GDP. This approach can raise questions as to whether the CBO is actually measuring potential GDP as most economist’s define it (and as we define it in the textbook): The level real GDP attains when all firms are producing at capacity. Other economists share these concerns. For instance, Daan Struyven, Jan Hatzius, and Sid Bhushan of the Goldman Sachs investment bank, argue that the CBO’s estimate of potential GDP understates the true capacity of the U.S. economy by 3 to 4 percent.

The CBO’s substantial adjustments to its forecasts of potential GDP are another indication of how volatile the U.S. economy has been since the beginning of the 2007–2009 recession.

Sources:  Tyler Powell, Louise Sheiner, and David Wessel, “What Is Potential GDP, and Why Is It So Controversial Right Now,” brookings.edu, February 22, 2021; and Congressional Budget Office, “Budget and Economic Data,” various years.