Former directors and staff of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) are gathering to celebrate its 50th anniversary on August 27. (The actual birthday was in February, but that’s a busy time of year for Congress’s budget minders.) CBO is a remarkable institution that set the standard for nonpartisan expert analysis of federal budget and tax programs. Its example inspired Bill Gale, Gene Steuerle, and me when we established the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. It helped that the Urban Institute’s president at the time, Bob Reischauer, had been Alice Rivlin’s partner in founding CBO and was later its director.

The core mission of CBO—to provide objective, impartial analysis—is woven into TPC’s DNA. By my count, 18 TPC staff and affiliates worked at CBO before or after their stint at TPC. That includes five former CBO directors and six former TPC directors and codirectors.

From its inception, CBO studies and reports have been studiously nonpartisan. They must be requested by the chairman or ranking member of a congressional committee. Internal and external reviewers scrutinize draft studies for technical accuracy and any hint of bias. Editors painstakingly review drafts for clarity, organization, and compliance with a detailed style guide. CBO documents never include a conclusions section or recommendations. CBO’s operating principle: Readers should draw their own conclusions.

For a staff analyst, as I was for nine years, this can be a laborious and sometimes exasperating process. But CBO’s work commands attention because the institution has unimpeachable integrity and analytical competence. Journalists are more than happy to explain the analysis and its policy implications for the public.

At TPC, we seek to emulate the CBO’s rigor while engaging with a broader set of policy actors at various decision points and maintaining a streamlined review and editorial process that allows us to contribute to policy debates in real time. Like CBO’s work, TPC facts, analyses, and insights may be criticized when they cut against political talking points—and cited by the same critics when they support them. 

TPC is not CBO. CBO is a unique and indispensable institution that has informed Congress’s budget and economic policy process for half a century. But we are so much better for having CBO as a role model, and proud to carry its legacy forward in our own way. 

Happy Birthday, CBO!