Congressional Budget Office

The mission of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), according to its web site, is "to provide the Congress with the objective, timely, nonpartisan analyses needed for economic and budget decisions and with the information and estimates required for the Congressional budget process.

Background
Compared with the missions of the Congress's other support agencies--the Congressional Research Service and the General Accounting Office--CBO's mandate is relatively narrow. ... A substantial part of what CBO does is to support the work of the House and Senate Committees on the Budget, which were also created by the 1974 Congressional Budget Act. Those committees are in charge of the process, spelled out in the act, by which the Congress sets its own targets for the federal budget, including the overall levels of revenues and spending, the surplus or deficit that results, and the distribution of federal spending by broad functional categories. Each spring the Congress adopts the end result of that process, the Congressional budget plan, in the form of a concurrent resolution. The resolution imposes an overall framework and discipline on the way appropriations, other spending measures, and tax legislation are passed."


 * Former Director - Robert D. Reischauer

2007 leadership
"Douglas Holtz-Eakin is the sixth Director of the Congressional Budget Office, where he was appointed for a four-year term beginning February 4, 2003."

Resources

 * Congressional budget office

Congresspedia/SourceWatch Resources

 * Congressional Research Service
 * How a bill becomes a law
 * Office of Management and Budget
 * U.S. budget deficit
 * U.S. economy
 * U.S. National Debt