The Congressional Budget Office is tasked with forecasting the federal budget. Over the past twenty years, the CBO has tended to over-estimate future tax revenues and under-estimate future government spending. The result is that CBO paints an unrealistically rosy picture of the government’s financial future. If we take CBO’s forecasts and compensate for their historically rosy biases, we find that, where the CBO predicts trillion-dollar deficits forever, the likely reality is actually worse.

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Quick hits

Europe votes for standardized phone chargers

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xgqwbd/europe-just-voted-in-favor-of-making-iphone-and-android-use-the-same-charger

Pledge

https://www.wgal.com/article/student-sues-lebanon-school-district-over-alleged-punishment-for-refusing-to-stand-for-pledge-of-allegiance/30732086

WV Board of Education v. Barnette

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_State_Board_of_Education_v._Barnette

Foolishness of the week

Punxsutawney Phil and PETA

https://www.fox5ny.com/news/peta-calls-for-punxsutawney-phil-to-retire-be-replaced-with-ai-robot-for-groundhog-day 

Topic of the week

Latest CBO report

https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-08/55551-CBO-outlook-update_0.pdf https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/budget-deficit-hit-1-trillion-year-cbo-200128193731479.html

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