US Budget Watch 2020 Will Hold Candidates Accountable for Their Fiscal Promises

For Immediate Release

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget launched its US Budget Watch 2020 project Wednesday, an initiative to educate the public and hold presidential candidates accountable for the fiscal impact of their promised proposals. The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

With the 2020 campaign now in full gear, the presidential candidates are putting forward many ambitious proposals aimed at solving very real problems and concerns. The voting public deserves to know how much these proposals will cost, and what it means for the debt we will be leaving to our children and grandchildren.

During the 2016 campaign cycle – through our Fiscal FactChecks and signature report Promises and Price Tags – we tallied the cost of every significant proposal from the major presidential candidates. Our work was cited thousands of times in the media, serving as an independent and nonpartisan resource for the media and voters. This cycle, with such a large field of candidates, we are launching our effort even sooner. 

Details matter when proposing billions of dollars in spending and/or tax cuts, and the American people need reliable information about policies that could significantly affect their lives and the future of the United States. We will continue to dig past the sound bites and produce sourced, reliable, and independent analyses of candidate claims and proposals. Our analyses will not include the gimmicks and sleights of hand that are sometimes used to make the numbers work – we will just rely on math.

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US Budget Watch 2020 will begin our work tonight, offering live Fiscal FactChecks of the first two primary debates. You can follow us on twitter at@BudgetHawks and the hashtag #USBW2020.

We’ll continue to offer fact checks throughout the campaign, along with policy explainers, new analyses, and comprehensive estimates of each major candidate’s agenda.

Learn more about US Budget Watch 2020.