WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. budget deficit through the first four months of this budget year is up 19% from the same period a year ago, putting the country on track to record its first $1 trillion deficit since 2012.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The Treasury Department said Wednesday in its monthly budget report that the deficit from October through January was $389.2 billion, up $78.9 billion from the same period last year.
The deficit reflected government spending that has grown 10.3% this budget year while revenues were up only 6.1%. For January, the deficit totaled $32.6 billion, compared to a surplus a year ago of $8.68 billion.
President Donald Trump sent Congress a new budget blueprint on Monday that projects the deficit will top $1 trillion this year but then will decline over the next decade.
The Congressional Budget Office, however, is projecting that the deficit will top $1 trillion this year and remain above $1 trillion over the next decade.
The actual deficit for the 2019 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, was $984.4 billion, up 26% from the 2018 imbalance. The rising deficits reflect the impact of the $1.5 trillion tax cut Trump pushed through Congress in 2017 and increased spending for military and domestic programs that the president has accepted as part of a budget deal with Democrats.
In his new budget plan for the 2021 fiscal year that starts on Oct. 1, Trump is proposing spending $4.8 trillion but would seek to hold down deficits by making cuts to domestic programs like food stamps and Medicaid.
Trump’s plan projects that if Congress goes along with his spending cuts, which is highly unlikely, the budget would return to balance in 15 years.
Through the first four months of this budget year, government spending has totaled a record $1.57 trillion, up 10.3% from the same period last year. Revenues also set a record for the first four months of a budget year, increasing by 6.1% to $1.18 trillion.
The government first ran $1 trillion deficits from 2009 through 2012 as revenues fell during the worst recession since the 1930s. Spending increased for safety-net programs such as unemployment benefits and to rescue banks and auto companies following the 2008 financial crisis.
Finally something bigger than Obama’s!
Donald likes to have the biggest every time.
Here is one of the few areas that I am disappointed with Trump. You need to balance that budget.
Keep taxes low. But cut spending on military and cut govt programs.
Here is a way to start cutting on medicad.
1) If you are fat, or smoke whether cigs or weed you pay for your health care. Its no longer free. Tax payers don’t need to fund your unhealthy lifestyle. Money is not n your control and I have pity for poor people who need health care. Lifestyle choices are in your control. Private insurers charge for these things.
2) Charge a copay. Contrary to popular belief it won’t discourages sick form seeing dr’s or inusrers woudn’t charge that to usp rivate people. It discourages wasteful dr and emergency room vists
The republicans whenever the democrats, yes democrats had a deficit their redundant mantra we burden or children now we burden or grandchildren and their grandchildren, fakers ,liars and stone instead to jail has his sentence reduced by the legal scholar djumpy trumpy
Stop paying Congressmen and Senators their salaries. If they’re so dedicated that they claim to be, they shouldn’t mind working for free. Most of them are corrupt millionaires anyway.
Hyperinflation happens when a society ignores financial basics in favor of other priorities. In time the scheme collapses and the piper must be paid.
The budget of the USA is full of fat; there are many obsolete federal agencies which should be abolished. For example, there is a USA-Canada Boundary Commission, with a highly paid administrator and staff. At the Pentagon, there are many clerical civilian and military personnel, who may not be needed. There are more Generals and Admirals now, than we had at the end of World War Two, when the military was 4-5 times larger. The Selective Service System should be abolished in its entirety once and for all, and its administrator, should be terminated. As Ronald Reagan once eloquently stated “The federal government should not spend any more money, than what it takes in”.