Papers
View our recurring reports, which summarize and analyze the most important regular federal budget releases and reports.
Principles for Social Security Reform
Social Security will be insolvent in as little as a decade. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the combined trust funds’ reserves will be...
Q&A: Everything You Should Know About the Debt Ceiling
This paper has been updated here . The federal debt ceiling was raised in December of 2021 by $2.5 trillion to $31.381 trillion , which is expected to...
Q&A: Everything You Should Know About Government Shutdowns
This paper has been updated here . The new fiscal year (FY) began on October 1, 2022, and Congress has so far enacted none of the 12 appropriations...
Q&A: Everything You Should Know About the Debt Ceiling
This paper has been updated . The federal debt ceiling was raised in December of 2021 by $2.5 trillion to $31.381 trillion , which is expected to last...
The CRFB Fiscal Blueprint for Reducing Debt and Inflation
The United States faces numerous economic and fiscal challenges, including surging inflation, rising interest rates, trust funds heading toward...
Rules Reform – Ideas for the 118th Congress
At the beginning of each new session of Congress, the House of Representatives must agree on a new set of rules governing how business will be...
Fiscal Policy in a Time of High Inflation
Inflation is currently surging at the fastest rate in more than four decades, with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) up 8.2 percent over the past year...
Committee Sends Letter to CMS on Medicare Advantage
On August 31, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget commented on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' request for information on...
Analysis of CBO's July 2022 Long-Term Budget Outlook
Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its July 2022 Long-Term Budget Outlook . Although CBO’s extended baseline is based on outdated...
Risks and Threats from Deficits and Debt
After two decades of uninterrupted borrowing – including three years in which deficits surpassed 10 percent of the economy – the U.S. national debt is...
Appropriations 101
This paper has been updated here . What are appropriations? How does Congress determine the total level of appropriations? How does Congress allocate...
Presentation: Can Carbon Taxes Fund Climate Investments?
On June 13, 2022, Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget gave a presentation to attendees of the 2022 Citizens’ Climate Lobby...