From: Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Posted by Phil Swagel, CBO Director on February 24, 2025.
Fifty years ago today, Alice Rivlin was appointed to lead the Congressional Budget Office as the agency’s first director. Gathering in a single room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building (CBO’s original home), Rivlin and a few assistants began the process of standing up a new nonpartisan agency dedicated to supporting the Congressional budget process.
From the start, Rivlin insisted that CBO should never try to tell the Congress what to do. And for the past half century, the agency’s mission has remained the same: to deliver objective and timely information, without making recommendations, to help lawmakers as they confront difficult policy decisions.
That nonpartisan mission and CBO’s enduring legacy—first defined by Rivlin and continued under nine other directors—could not have been achieved without the hard work of the agency’s talented staff, many of whom have served for years or even decades and exemplify the very best of public service. CBO is grateful for the contributions of its employees both past and present—those who carry out the agency’s analysis and those who provide the organizational structure to make it possible.
CBO is also deeply appreciative of the ongoing support from those it was created to serve, including the House and Senate Budget Committees, other Congressional committees, Congressional leadership, and individual Members.
In addition to our staff, the agency has been aided by many outside experts over the years, including those from other government agencies, the academic community, think tanks, and the private sector. We are grateful for the time and talent they have lent to CBO.
At this important milestone, we can look to the past with pride and to the future with optimism, driven by the challenge to always improve our work. That includes making our analysis more accurate and transparent, striving to be as responsive as possible to the lawmakers who rely on us, and ensuring that the agency continues to bring together bright minds, powerful analytic tools, and all the available evidence.
Much has changed in the 50 years since CBO’s founding. But Alice Rivlin would be pleased to know that the agency’s commitment to provide objective, insightful, and timely information to the Congress has not changed. It is still upheld daily by people who take their responsibility seriously and regard their service as a privilege.
Cheers to the first 50 years—and to 50 more!
Phillip L. Swagel is CBO’s Director.