CBO is a legislative agency that advises the Congress on general budget issues and forecasts of the value of new legislation tax cuts. The agency is primarily accountable to Congress, in particular, to budget committees. On the other hand, OMB is an executive agency, a subsidiary of the White House, which controls the activities of federal agencies and agencies. In the budget process, they work with agencies to formulate their budgets, which will be rolled over to the president's budget and presented to the congress. OMB also monitors the work of agencies and enforces executive policies. OMB is accountable to the President.
2) What are the the primary functions of the OMB and the CBO, and in addition, what events lead to the creation of the CBO? (8 points). …show more content…
Each year, the president issues a budget plan, and each year we receive two different sets of forecasts about the implications of the budget plan if they were adopted.
First, by accompanying the budget plan, we get the White House forecast - forecasts from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). After some time, we get another set of forecasts from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The CBO report, which was published this morning, compares the president's budget with the current baseline - what CBO expects from the budget, whether all current legislation remains in force. At the same time, it can be shown that CBO assessments are also compared to estimates made by OMB. Inevitably, some of the ratings that come out of the White House are much more
pink.
3) What are the differences between the OMB and the CBO? For this last part, you should be focusing primarily on what kinds of things the OMB does that the CBO does not do, and noting any biases of these institutions, if any. (8 Pts)
This is a very big difference. There are many reasons for the difference, many of which are quite technical. But in general, CBO and OMB use several different starting conditions, which means that forecasts have different starting points. OMB also tends to rely on more vivid estimates of the future economy, which, in turn, makes its overall view more sunny. Well, we have these competing ratings. First, each of them provides a check on the other. For example, both basketball players know that their scores will be checked against another, so none of them wants to go too far. This is especially useful for maintaining OMB's natural political incentives for optimism. Within the framework of the White House there are obvious reasons why OMB seeks to see more vivid economic prospects; A further assessment by the CBO helps to ensure that optimism is not too much out of control.