About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

CBO's Projections of Federal Receipts and Expenditures in the National Income and Product Accounts 1 (September 2015)

handle is hein.congrec/cbo2508 and id is 1 raw text is: i' .. S SE P T EMB ER 2015 CBO's Projections of Federal Receipts and Expenditures in the National Income and Product Accounts The fiscal transactions of the federal government are recorded in two major sets of accounts that are conceptu- ally quite different. One is The Budget of the United States Government, prepared by the Office of Management and Budget. It is the framework generally used by executive branch agencies and the Congress and is the presentation of the federal government's budgetary activity that is most often discussed in the press. The other set of accounts is the national income and product accounts (NIPAs), produced by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).1 The purposes served by the budget and the NIPAs and the relationship between the two sets of accounts arc examined briefly below and more thoroughly in previous publica- tions of the Congressional Budget Office.2 CBO recently reported its latest baseline projections of federal revenues and outlays using the standard structure for budget accounting.' This report presents those projections using 1. See Mark S. Ludwick and Benyam Tsehaye, NIPA Translation of the Fiscal Year 2016 Federal Budget, Survey of Current Business, vol. 95, no. 3 (Bureau of Economic Analysis, March 2015), www.bea.gov/scb/toc/0315cont.htm; and Bruce E. Baker and Pamela A. Kelly, BEA Briefing: A Primer on BEAs Government Accounts, Survey of Current Business, vol. 88, no. 3 (Bureau of Economic Analysis, March 2008), www.bea.gov/scb/ toc/0308cont.htm. 2. See Congressional Budget Office, CBO's Projections of Federal Receipts and Expenditures in the National Income and Product Accounts (May 2013), www.cbo.gov/publication/44140. 3. See Congressional Budget Office, An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2015 to 2025 (August 2015), www.cbo.gov/ publication/50724. the NIPA framework (see Table 1) and shows how the two presentations differ (see Table 2 on page 4). Over the 2015-2025 projection period spanned by CBO's baseline, conceptual differences cause receipts in the NIPAs to be greater than revenues in the budget by about 5 percent and expenditures in the NIPAs to exceed outlays in the budget by about 8 percent.4 Projected expenditures in the NIPAs exceed projected receipts by a total of $9.4 trillion, whereas deficits in CBO's baseline budget projections total $7.4 trillion. The Federal Budget The budget of the federal government is best understood as an information and management tool.5 Its main objec- tives are to provide information that can assist lawmakers in their policy deliberations, to facilitate the management and control of federal activities, and to help the Treasury manage its cash balances and determine its borrowing needs. In most cases, items in the federal budget are reported on a cash accounting basis, a method that records the inflow of revenues and the outflow of spending over a 4. As specified in law, and to provide a benchmark against which potential policy changes can be measured, CBO constructs its baseline estimates of federal revenues and spending under the assumption that current laws generally remain unchanged. 5. Another approach to assessing the government's fiscal performance is reflected in the annual Financial Report of the United States Government (www.fms.treas.gov/fr), which uses an accrual basis of accounting to measure assets, liabilities, revenues, and expenses. See Congressional Budget Office, Comparing Budget andAccounting Measures of the Federal Government' Fiscal Condition (December 2006), www.cbo.gov/publication/18262. Note: Numbers in the text and tables may not add up to totals because of rounding.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most