For another illustration of how different baselines put different slants on the same future policy, see http://keithhennessey.com/2009/04/21/baseline-games/ The budget baselines described there include both spending and taxes. The author of the linked web page never mentions this, writing as if the only differences were on the spending side and the growth assumptions, but the CBO baseline uses current law for taxes and the Obama baseline uses current policy. That author is playing a baseline game of his own by not revealing this crucial fact.