Budget Projections

CBO's budget projections give the Congress a baseline against which to measure the effects of proposed changes in tax and spending laws. The projections start with the Congress's most recent budgetary decisions and show what would happen to the federal budget if no policy changes were made over the projection period. For revenues and entitlement programs, such as Social Security or Medicare, the baseline projections generally assume that current laws will continue without change. For discretionary spending, CBO (as directed by the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985) assumes that budget authority for discretionary programs will grow at the rate of inflation each year after. For more information about CBO and its budget projections, please see About CBO.

CBO's most recent budget projections appear in A Preliminary Analysis of the President's Budget and an Update of CBO's Budget and Economic Outlook, released on March 20, 2009. Those projections, along with supplemental ones, are in consolidated form here:

• Comparison of Projected Revenues, Outlays, and Deficits in CBO's March 2009 Baseline and CBO's Estimate of the President's Budget
• CBO's Baseline Budget Projections
• Changes in CBO's Baseline Projections of the Deficit Since January 2009
• CBO's Estimate of the President's Budget
• CBO's Estimate of the Effect of the President's Budget on Baseline Deficits
• CBO's March 2009 Baseline Projections of Federal Interest Outlays and Debt
• CBO's Baseline Projections of Mandatory Outlays
• Costs for Mandatory Programs That CBO's March 2009 Baseline Assumes Will Continue Beyond Their Current Expiration Dates

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In addition, CBO has estimated the budgetary effects of selected policy alternatives not included in its baseline.