The US deficit topped $1 trillion. The year's not even over yet
The US budget deficit widened to $1.067 trillion for the first 11 months of the fiscal year, an increase of 19% over this time last year, the Treasury Department reported Thursday. The current shortfall exceeds the full-year deficit for fiscal 2018, which was $898 billion. President Donald Trump, who promised during the 2016 campaign to eliminate the federal debt, has instead overseen a dramatic increase in deficits.
The White House's Office of Management and Budget has predicted that the deficit will exceed $1 trillion for the entire fiscal year, which ends on September 30. On Monday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the federal deficit had surpassed $1 trillion in the first 11 months of fiscal 2019, according to its budget review.
A number of factors are driving the US deficit increase, including the $1.5 trillion tax cuts signed into law by Trump in 2017 along with a massive spending package passed by Congress.
The deficit is expected to swell to $960 billion in fiscal 2019, according to the CBO's latest report, and average $1.2 trillion in each of the next 10 years. The CBO raised its forecast for this year's deficit by $63 billion after Trump signed into law a bipartisan two-year budget deal over the summer. In August, Congress agreed to a deal that would raise spending by an additional $320 billion over the next two years and suspended the debt ceiling through mid-2021.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/12/business/us-federal-deficit-august/index.html
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