Reducing the Deficit: Spending and Revenue Options. A Report to the Senate andHouse Committees on the Budget, March 1997

摘要

This volume compiles some 200 specific policy options for reducing spending orincreasing federal revenues in a wide variety of programs. It is the 18th such compendium that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has prepared as part of its annual report to the House and Senate Committees on the Budget. The report begins with an introductory chapter that provides general background information on CBO's latest deficit projections and explains how to use the options presented in this volume. The next three chapters include more than 150 options for reducing spending, organized by broad categories that have become the focus for deficit reduction efforts--defense and international discretionary spending, domestic discretionary spending, and entitlement and other mandatory spending. The fifth chapter presents several integrated packages of options for reducing the growth of spending for Medicare and Medicaid instead of a series of individual policy options. The discussion highlights the trade-offs and interactions that must be considered when combining detailed policies into comprehensive proposals. The last chapter presents 39 revenue-generating options. The report concludes with an appendix listing the spending options by the budget functions that would be affected, and a glossary of budget and economic terms.