Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

In 2008, the organization received a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts to raise the public understanding of important fiscal matters facing the country during the 2008 election. This project, called US Budget Watch, was also tasked with tracking the candidates’ tax and spending promises both during and after the election.

The project's most high-profile contribution to the public debate was its series of “Voter Guides,” which attempted to tabulate the costs of then-Senator Barack Obama's and Senator John McCain's campaign promises.[7] The project's "Promises, Promises: A Fiscal Voter Guide to the 2008 Election"[8] was widely cited in the mainstream media during the campaign. CNN called it “the most detailed analysis of McCain's and Obama's budget plans.".[9]

On October 15, 2008, during the third debate of the 2008 presidential election, moderator Bob Schieffer asked a question citing US Budget Watch's voter guides about the effects of the candidates' proposed policies on the deficit.[10]

In February 2012, US Budget Watch released a report assessing the debt impact of the campaign proposals from the Republican presidential candidates.[11] The study was preceded by a publication laying out “The 12 Principles of Fiscal Responsibility for the 2012 Campaign.”[12]

Efforts in the 2016 presidential campaign included a report comparing the fiscal impact of the policy proposals from Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, titled "Promises and Pricetags." Data from the project was cited in several debates.[13]

US Budget Watch 2020 has published explainers on candidates' proposals and fact-checked their statements related to fiscal policy, as well as compared candidate healthcare plans. It also produced an analysis comparing the campaign proposals of President Trump and Vice President Biden.[14]

In late 2008, CRFB received support from The Peter G. Peterson Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts to create a new commission that would explore options for reforming the federal budget process, the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform.

Initially, the commission was directed by Jim Bates, former Chief Counsel and Staff Director of the U.S. House Committee on the Budget, and former Associate Director of Energy, Natural Resources, Agriculture, & Science at the Office of Management and Budget. F. Steven Redburn, a former senior official in the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, directed the project in 2010 and 2011. The project completed its work in 2011 and was succeeded by the Better Budget Process Initiative.[15]

The Better Budget Process Initiative was created in 2014 to fix the broken budget process through concrete ideas to reform and improve the way the budget is developed. Publications produced by the initiative include principles for a budget resolution and budget baseline reforms.

FixUS was formally launched in 2020. According to its website: "FixUS is a group of Americans united in shared concern over the divided state of our country. We believe that healing these divisions is our highest national priority, and essential to preparing our nation to face the defining challenges of the 21st century."[16]

FixUS conducted a national Roadshow and Listening Tour to discuss the division and dysfunction plaguing our politics. It produced a report with findings.[17]

The Campaign to Fix the Debt was launched in July 2012, and has advocated for deficit reduction (including cuts to Social Security and Medicare) and tax reform to avoid a fiscal cliff. In 2012, former Democrat Erskine Bowles and former Republican Senator Alan Simpson served as co-chairs, while former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and former Senator Judd Gregg served as steering committee co-chairs.[18]

The Capitalism, Technology, and the Economy program was launched in 2020. A piece in the April 2020 issue of The Atlantic contended that addictive technologies threaten to undermine the free market.[19]

The McCrery-Pomeroy SSDI Solutions Initiative was launched in 2014 to identify “practical policy changes to improve the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program and other policies for people with disabilities.”[20] It was co-chaired by former Congressmen Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) and Jim McCrery (R-LA), both former Chairmen of the House Ways & Means Social Security Subcommittee.

The initiative published a book, SSDI Solutions: Ideas to Strengthen the Social Security Disability Insurance Program, in 2016 based on papers commissioned from various policy experts. It published several more commissioned papers in 2018 and 2019.

Mark Warner, David Stockman, John Engler, Alan Greenspan and Jane Harman at Go Big 2011

CRFB launched the Go Big initiative after The Budget Control Act of 2011, enacted in early August to raise the debt-ceiling and avoid default, tasked a bipartisan 12-member Joint Congressional Committee on Deficit Reduction (Super Committee) with finding an additional $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction by November 23. If the Super Committee fails to report at least $1.2 trillion in savings, across-the-board spending cuts will be triggered, taking effect in 2013 in order to bring ten-year savings up to $1.2 trillion. Even if the Super Committee succeeds in its task of finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction, that amount would be insufficient to stabilize and reduce the national debt as a percentage of GDP.[21] For this reason, CRFB launched "Go Big" in an effort to urge the Super Committee to exceed its savings mandate of $1.5 trillion and enact a bipartisan, comprehensive fiscal reform plan.[22]

In early 2011, former fiscal commission co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson launched the Moment of Truth Project, a non-profit, non-partisan effort that seeks to foster honest discussion about the nation's fiscal challenges, the difficult choices that must be made to solve them, and the potential for bipartisan compromise that can move the debate forward and set our country on a sustainable path. The Moment of Truth project aims to use the Fiscal Commission's findings to spark a national discussion on the need to implement a comprehensive budget fix, and to help further develop the policy reforms ideas to improve the nation's fiscal outlook.[23]

In early 2009, CRFB unveiled Stimulus.org, a database which tracked the spending and deficit impact of all major government actions taken in response to the economic and financial crisis.

On the April 5, 2009 edition of CBS’ Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer used figures from CRFB's “Stimulus Watch” chart while questioning Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner about the amount of Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds that remained unspent.[24]

CRFB's "Fiscal Roadmap Project" was an initiative seeking to outline how the U.S. can move from stabilizing the economy during financial crisis to addressing its long-term fiscal problems. The ultimate goal of the project was to show how policymakers can eventually put the country in what CRFB regards as a sounder fiscal position.[25] The project released at least two long analyses, one on deficits [26] and another on the activities of the Federal Reserve during the Economic and Financial Crisis of 2008-2009.[27] The Fiscal Roadmap project was originally directed by Anne Vorce, former U.S. economic expert for the European Commission.

CRFB also publishes a blog titled The Bottom Line, which features up to date news stories, as well as opinion pieces and general information, regarding issues that affect fiscal policy. The blog is updated daily with new posts accompanied by relevant graphics and links.

CRFB has created several interactive tools to create a better understanding of the fiscal challenges facing the country and the choices required to address them. The "COVID Money Tracker" tool was launched in 2020 to track federal spending in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[28]

The “Stabilize the Debt” online budget simulator was launched in 2010 and challenged the user to reduce the national debt to 60% of the economy in the medium term and put it on a declining course thereafter with a variety of options available from all parts of the federal budget. It was replaced by the "Debt Fixer" tool in 2017.[29] Results are occasionally compiled and analyzed to highlight trends in public support for specific deficit reduction ideas.[30] “The Reformer: An Interactive Tool to Fix Social Security” offers options to improve Social Security and put its finances on a sustainable path.[31]