The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released new baseline projections today, which show that the nation will face daunting fiscal challenges over the next decade resulting from the existing structural mismatch between revenues and outlays as well as the enormous amount of borrowing necessary to address the pandemic and its economic effects. The agency’s projections include all COVID-19 relief bills that have been enacted thus far, but don’t account for any pandemic relief currently being considered.
Here are the key takeaways from those projections:
While the nation’s economy continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, CBO’s latest projections demonstrate how significantly the pandemic has affected the country’s fiscal outlook. It also underscores that, same as prior to the pandemic, the structural mismatch between spending and revenues will continue once the pandemic has subsided — further exacerbating the nation’s fiscal situation. Once we are able to overcome the detrimental effects of the pandemic, lawmakers will need to return to addressing our fiscal challenges to ensure a stronger economic future for all.
Related: Understanding the Coronavirus Crisis: Key Fiscal and Economic Indicators
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