Thursday by the Treasury Department, the United States government incurred half a trillion dollars in additional deficit spending during the first quarter of its fiscal year.
After a deficit of $129.4 billion in December alone, which was 52% larger than a year before, the budget deficit for the period from October 2023 through December 2023 was about $510 billion. The increase in the deficit caused the national debt to surpass $34 trillion for the very first time.
The budget shortfall for 2024 is even more intense than the $1.7 trillion deficit that was recorded in the previous year.
For instance, in Q1 of FY 2023, there was a $421.4 billion disparity between expenditure and revenue. There was an increase of $89 billion from last year to fiscal 2024, when adjusted for inflation. The difference between the two years is $97 billion, according to the Treasury Department, after accounting for calendar variables
Due to increased interest and Social Security payments, the deficit in December was over $34 billion more than in November. The deficit for 2024 would be little over $2 trillion if present trends persist.
There has been no reduction in the deficit despite the Biden administration's claims that the Inflation Reduction Act will reduce prices and save "hundreds of billions" of dollars.
Despite a decline in inflation, the consumer price index rose 0.3% in December, bringing the 12-month rate to 3.4%, above both the consensus on Wall Street and the Federal Reserve's 2% target, according to statistics released Thursday by the Labor Department.
The government spent roughly $660 billion on financing in 2023 due to high interest rates caused by the Fed's war against inflation. The third quarter of 2023 saw a rise in debt to GDP ratio to 120%.