Federal deficit hit $1.6 trillion in first 10 months of FY23, more than double last year’s shortfall

The latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report was released on Tuesday and it revealed some alarming news.

The federal government’s budget deficit more than doubled through the first 10 months of the current fiscal year compared to a year ago. According to the CBO, the federal deficit for FY2023 is expected to be about $1.7 trillion – $200 billion larger than the forecast issued in May.

It’s become very clear that reckless spending has been at an all-time high under the Biden administration. Federal spending was 10% higher during this reporting period than it was one year ago, while tax revenues came in 10% lower, causing our deficit to increase significantly.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget president Maya MacGuineas pointed out that we’re now borrowing $5.3 billion per day and have already surpassed all of last year’s deficits – making this one of the largest on record.

The main catalyst behind these skyrocketing numbers is President Biden’s policies and pandemic relief programs that have caused massive amounts of money to be printed with no regard for our future financial health as a nation or its citizens down the road.

The American Rescue Plan Act alone cost taxpayers nearly two trillion dollars and was passed along partisan lines with no bipartisan agreement in sight – which only adds fuel to Fitch Rating’s downgrade of America’s credit rating from ‘AAA’ to ‘AA+.’

This irresponsible behavior has not gone unnoticed by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen who pushed back on Fitch’s decision regarding America’s credit rating downgrade due in part to “partisan standoffs over fiscal policies.”

This statement highlights how much further Washington needs to go when it comes to creating a balanced budget plan and taking steps toward reducing our national debt before it becomes too late. We must stop putting off hard decisions into future years when they should be made today in order for us as a country to remain financially stable going forward.

With so much already being spent each day, Americans are growing increasingly worried about inflation and soaring food prices becoming evermore prevalent across our nation – especially among Latino communities where food insecurity is already an issue pre-pandemic years according to Feeding America statistics from 2019-2020.

Fox Business reported:

Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement, “With just two months left in the fiscal year, we’ve now borrowed $5.3 billion per day and have already surpassed all of last year’s deficits. The deficit this year and next year are on track to be 50 percent larger than before the pandemic, despite the fact that the pandemic is over and the economy seems to be growing at a steady clip.”

A federal budget deficit of $1.7 trillion would be one of the largest on record, and it comes even as many COVID-19 pandemic relief programs have concluded, which caused the largest deficits in U.S. history due to the elevated spending and reduced economic activity that diminished tax revenues.

The U.S. ran a record-setting deficit of more than $3.1 trillion in FY2020 after Congress approved trillions of dollars of new spending on temporary COVID-19 programs on a bipartisan basis, including those under the CARES Act in the early weeks of the pandemic-induced lockdowns.