The difference between budget realism and current law
As I mentioned Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office’s annual budget outlook includes two possible scenarios: An unrealistic one that pretends Congress will follow the law as written and a more realistic one in which Congress extends the Bush tax cuts, keeps Medicare’s payments to doctors stable, etc.
But it can be hard, just reading the CBO report, to see how big each of these policies actually is. Which is why the friendly wonks at the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget have put together this interactive graph showing the difference between the unrealistic scenario and what they consider to be a more realistic scenario:
Much more data, including a table showing the annual cost of each policy, here.
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Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein is the editor of Wonkblog and a columnist at the Washington Post, as well as a contributor to MSNBC and Bloomberg. His work focuses on domestic and economic policymaking, as well as the political system that’s constantly screwing it up. He really likes graphs, and is on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. E-mail him here.
Suzy Khimm
Suzy Khimm covers the budget, economic policy, and financial regulatory reform. Before coming to Washington, she was based in Brazil and Southeast Asia, where she wrote for the Economist, Slate, and the Wall Street Journal Asia. Follow her on Twitter here, and email her here.
Sarah Kliff
Sarah Kliff covers health policy, focusing on Medicare, Medicaid and the health reform law. She tries to fit in some reproductive health and education policy coverage, too, alongside an occasional hockey reference. Her work has appeared in Newsweek, Politico, and the BBC. She is on Twitter and Facebook.
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