This act established the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to provide baseline projections of current and future revenues and outlays and to estimate the budgetary effect of spending proposals. The act named the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) as the official “scorekeeper” for revenue legislation. The CBO and the JCT provide credible estimates of taxes, spending, and deficits based on a common set of assumptions.
By establishing a sensible context in which the inevitable political struggles  BIS Review 42/2004  1  associated with setting budgetary priorities can take place, this information significantly affects the budget process and, ultimately, budget outcomes. Many analysts have worried about deficiencies in the concepts underlying the official budget estimates. Apart from a few exceptions, budget estimates are based on cash accounting.