Underlying data:download
President Bush delivered his 2009 budget to Congress on February 4, starting the formal process under which Congress will consider appropriation and tax bills for the 2008 fiscal year, which begins October 1. The Senate and House Budget committees consider the budget using the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline as a starting point. The Office of Management and Budget directs the administration’s budget efforts while the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation provide support for the Congress and its budget and tax-writing committees.
The Administration's FY 2008 budget, including descriptions of major programs, is available here. Description and estimates of Administration revenue proposals, prepared by the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Policy, is available here.
This section provides summary information and supporting detail about the President's spending and tax plans for fiscal year 2009. Also see the Brookings Institution Budget page
CBO's new baseline shows an improving budget situation with the deficit shrinking over time and becoming a surplus in 2012. That baseline, however, assumes discretionary spending will grow at the rate of inflation, the 2001-2006 tax cuts will be allowed to expire in 2011 as scheduled, there will be no change in the alternative minimum tax, and there will be minimal growth in entitlement spending. Relaxing those assumptions to reflect more likely policies sharply worsens the budget picture.
Composition of the Federal Budget as a Percentage of GDP, 1950 - 2013
Federal Revenues by Source as a Percentage of GDP, 1934 - 2013
Federal Debt 1940 - 2010
More
Time for a Budget Summit: Only a summit of the president and both houses of Congress can dispel partisan distrust and obtain the political cover needed to make the difficult decisions on the budget.
Still Crazy After All These Years: Understanding the Budget Outlook the economic and technical factors that elevated the deficit from 2002-05 have almost entirely reversed themselves, while the effects of policy changes continue to accumulate. As a result, almost all of the net change in fiscal projections since 2001 is due to deficit-increasing changes in policy.
Restoring Fiscal Sanity 2005: Meeting the Long-Run Challenge: How can spending and revenues change to deal with budget deficits made worse by soaring health care and pension costs for retiring baby boomers?
View more selected publications on the Federal Budget.
