Appropriation Request for Fiscal Year 2009
Abstract
Madam Chair and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to present the fiscal year 2009 budget request for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). I recognize that the agency's request this CBO's mission is to provide the Congress with timely, objective, nonpartisan analyses of the budget and the economy and to furnish the information and cost estimates required for the Congressional budget process. In fulfilling that mission, CBO relies heavily on a highly skilled workforce. Approximately 90 percent of the agency's appropriation is devoted to personnel (and the remaining 10 percent is for information technology (IT), equipment, supplies, and small purchases of other items). Over the past four years, CBO's budget has risen by an average of less than percent per year, making it difficult to keep pace with rising personnel costs, especially in the face of increasingly attractive outside opportunities for skilled economists and policy analysts. In addition, the Congress has recently been asking CBO to play a substantially expanded role, particularly in providing options and analyses related to health care spending. To help CBO fulfill its mission in supporting the Congress and to allow the agency to better meet the needs that Congressional committees have identified, the proposed budget for fiscal year 2009 totals $42,740,000, a $5.4 million or 14.6 percent increase over the fiscal year 2008 funding level. Roughly $2 million of that increase would be dedicated to a modest expansion in CBO's staffing, which would remain significantly less than the staffing of other agencies performing similar functions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 12, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA478294
Entities
People
- Peter R. Orszag
Organizations
- Congressional Budget Office