The federal government spent $1.8 trillion more than it collected in tax revenue in fiscal year 2024, according to figures released Friday by U.S. Treasury Department.
Congress has run a deficit every year since 2001. In the past 50 years, the federal government has ended with a fiscal year-end budget surplus four times, most recently in 2001.
The deficit for fiscal 2024 was $1.8 trillion, or $138 billion higher than the prior year’s deficit. As a percentage of GDP, the deficit was 6.4%, an increase from 6.2% in fiscal 2023. The 2024 deficit is $196 billion lower than in 2023, excluding the effect of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Biden v. Nebraska regarding student loan programs, according to year-end data from the September 2024 Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government.
The fiscal year 2024 deficit was $76 billion below the baseline estimate of $1.91 trillion in the 2024 budget published in March, and $144 billion lower than the baseline estimate of $1.98 trillion in the Mid-Session Review, a supplemental update to the budget published in July.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said that is equal to borrowing about $5 billion a day, adding daily to the nation’s $35.76 trillion debt. […]
— Read More: justthenews.com
