U.S. federal budgeting has two major categories of spending. The one subject to the most scrutiny is “discretionary” spending, which is the basis of the annual appropriations process. This includes ...

This technical note explains how we adjust the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ten-year budget baseline issued in January 2025 to create our CBPP baseline, which we use in our analyses of ...

Non-defense discretionary spending, funding agencies like NASA, the IRS, and border security, is already near historical lows at 3% of GDP. The compensation of federal employees, representing less ...

The “everything else” category — “non-defense discretionary spending” — amounts to just under 20 percent of the budget. What follows from this is fairly straightforward: If your budget ...

Here’s What You Need to Remember: In response to another request from Graham, the CBO estimated that the relief plan, the increased non-defense discretionary funding and the infrastructure and f ...

Non-defense discretionary spending, which Trump appears most open to cutting, is roughly 16 percent of the federal budget. Even if he were to do the politically impossible and eliminate every ...