Fiscal Fatigue: Tracking the Budget Outlook as Political Leaders Lurch from One Artificial Crisis to Another.” Brookings Institution

With the passage of the recent tax act, many observers are claiming that fiscal issues have been, essentially, resolved and that the nation should move on to other issues. The February 2013 release of the Congressional Budget Office’s Budget and Economic Outlook provides an opportunity to re-examine these issues and to provide new estimates of the fiscal status of the country. Our overarching conclusion is that, while the nation faces many other pressing economic and social issues – including boosting the strength and pace of the current recovery – we are still far from attaining a sustainable fiscal policy. This updates our most recent analysis of the budget outlook (Auerbach and Gale 2012) to incorporate the latest Congressional Budget Office projections. We thank Samuel Brown and Fernando Saltiel for research assistance. All opinions and any mistakes are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the staff, officers, or trustees of any of the institutions with which they are affiliated.