Higher revenues and growth admidst mounting debt and deficits: those are the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office's Economic Outlook report, and this week's edition of The Taxpayer's Tab dives a little deeper into the numbers to see where the economy might be headed over the next decade.
CBO's latest report on federal spending, deficits, and revenue growth forecasts modest improvements in some areas -- for example, higher tax revenues and a deficit almost $200 billion lower than last year's -- while indicating that there's plenty of room for improvement in others. Federal outlays are expected to grow by an average of five percent per year over the next decade, and in that time, federal debt could grow to 77 percent of GDP (in 2007, that figure was less than half that, at 35 percent).
And although Congress has been out of town on a 5-month summer recess, NTUF continues to update our database of cost estimates for the thousands of bills introduced in Congress so far. According to our latest findings, the 113th Congress has introduced nearly 5 bills to increase spending for every budget cut proposal in the House; the ratio is over 6:1 in the Senate.
Also featured in this week's edition of The Tab is a look at one particular type of legislation that consistently receives nearly unanimous support in Congress: bills to rename public land and buildings. Since the 108th Congress, nearly 20 percent of all bills that have been signed into law have been those that rename post office facilities, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. Although these bills typically cost the government very little, taxpayers may be surprised to learn there have already been over 100 introduced in the 113th Congress so far.
As always, you can read the latest edition of The Tab and subscribe to email updates online.