On Thursday, December 13, CBO will release Options for Reducing the Deficit: 2019 to 2028, the latest edition of a report that the agency publishes periodically. The report will be available on CBO’s website at 2:00 p.m. It will describe 121 policy options—covering many areas, including defense, health, Social Security, and provisions of the tax code—that would decrease federal spending or increase federal revenues over the next decade.
CBO’s website includes a search tool that allows users to filter options by major budget category, budget function, topic, and date. That tool is regularly updated to include only the most recent version of options from various CBO reports, so on December 13, it too will contain the 121 options described in the new report. The tool also includes options that were analyzed in the past, were not updated for this report, but remain informative.
The report is meant to help inform federal lawmakers about the implications of possible policy choices. The options are not recommendations by CBO, nor do they constitute an exhaustive list; rather, they are intended to reflect a range of possibilities. The options come from various sources, including legislative proposals, various Administrations’ budget proposals, Congressional offices, other government entities, and private groups.
The previous volume, Options for Reducing the Deficit: 2017 to 2026, was published in December 2016.
Keith Hall is CBO’s Director.