CBO is required to regularly prepare a baseline consisting of projections of federal revenues, spending, deficits or surpluses, and debt under current law. This document describes the laws that govern how CBO prepares those projections.
As defined by the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995, mandates generally require a nonfederal entity to take an action or comply with a prohibition. This primer describes the principles that CBO follows to identify mandates in legislation.
