The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2016 to 2026 report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) was released on January 25. According to CBO, the federal deficit is projected to grow by about $8.5 trillion between 2016 and 2025, up from the $7 trillion that CBO projected in August 2015. The CBO states that the increase “is mostly from the decline in [our] projections of revenues.” Half of the increase ($749 billion) is the result of the December law that permanently extended a number of tax credits and deductions.
CBO also reports that spending in 2016 for nondefense discretionary (NDD) programs, which includes spending for all HUD and Rural Housing Service programs, will be the lowest as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since 1966, when the CBO first began these analyses. CBO forecasts that NDD spending as a percentage of GDP will continue to decrease over the next ten years.
Both House and Senate hearings on the CBO report, originally scheduled for the week of January 25, were postponed because of the snowstorm in the Washington, DC area. The House Committee on the Budget has rescheduled its hearing for February 4 at 9:30 am ET in room 210 of the Cannon House office building. A new Senate Committee on the Budget hearing on the CBO report has not been announced.
Read the CBO report at: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51129-2016Outlook.pdf