The U.S. federal budget deficit for the first six months of the fiscal year rose to $ 1.7 trillion as more stimulus spending added billions of dollars to government spending last month.
The U.S. government budget deficit hit a record high of $ 1.7 trillion for the first six months of this fiscal year, nearly double the previous record, as another round of economic support checks added billions of dollars to spending last month.
In its monthly budget report, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Monday that the deficit for the first half of the budget year – October through March – was up from a $ 743.5 billion deficit for the same period a year ago.
The deficit has been widened by trillions of dollars to argue that Congress has passed successive economic bailouts since the coronavirus pandemic struck in early March 2020. The latest cycle has come to a extent of $ 1.9 trillion dollars that President Joe Biden passed through Congress last month.
Biden’s package included individual alimony payments of up to $ 1,400 and the administration rushed to make those payments as soon as Biden signed the measure. The Treasury statement showed payments in March amounted to $ 339 billion.
The budget report showed the deficit for the month of March alone was $ 659.6 billion, the third highest monthly deficit. For the six-month period, the total deficit of $ 1.7 trillion surpassed the previous record of an accumulated deficit of $ 829 billion for the six months ending March 2011, a period during which the government was spending to deal with the negative effects of the recession. caused by the 2008 financial crisis.
Last year’s deficit, for the budget year that ended September 30, totaled a record $ 3.1 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in February that this year’s deficit would be $ 2.3 trillion. But that estimate did not include the cost of Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion bailout that Congress passed in March or the impact of Biden’s Build Back Better infrastructure proposal that Congress is now considering.
