The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provides data on the actual and cyclically adjustedbudget deficits. You can find data for the years 1965–2016 at cbo.gov/about/products/ budget-economic-data#2. Scroll down to Estimate of Automatic Stabilizers and select
Jan 2017.
a. The CBO calls the budget deficit or surplus “Deficit or Surplus with Automatic Stabilizers” and calls the cyclically adjusted deficit or surplus the “Deficit or Surplus without Automatic Stabilizers.” Briefly explain why the CBO uses these labels.
b. For the years 2000–2016, enter the data from the columns “Deficit or Surplus with Automatic Stabilizers” and “Deficit or Surplus without Automatic Stabilizers” into an Excel spreadsheet. Use the data to graph the budget deficit or surplus and the cyclically adjusted deficit or surplus for these years.
c. Calculate the average surplus or deficit and the average cyclically adjusted surplus or deficit for these years. Which was larger? Briefly explain your result.