Two via Yahoo Finance, February 12. First up, Bloomberg:
US Budget Gap Widens 16% in First Four Months of Fiscal Year
The US budget deficit widened in the four months through January, as debt-servicing costs climbed further.
The deficit for the first four months of the 2024 fiscal year reached $532 billion, or 16% more than recorded in the same period in the prior year, Treasury Department data released Monday showed. Interest costs in the four months through January were $357 billion, a 37% jump from 2023.
The Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest-rate hiking campaign has made debt more expensive, increasing the burden for the US budget. The weighted average interest rate on outstanding US interest-bearing government debt was 3.15% at the end of January — the highest since May 2010 and marking a roughly 70 basis point increase from a year before....
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And from Reuters:
US January deficit falls sharply as receipts grow, tax refunds fall
The U.S. federal budget deficit fell sharply in January to $22 billion as receipts hit a record for that month, partly because tax refunds fell after the Internal Revenue Service cleared a backlog of pandemic-delayed tax returns, the U.S. Treasury said on Monday.
The deficit last month was $17 billion, or 43%, less than the $39 billion deficit in January 2023. Outlays for the month grew 3% to $499 billion, while receipts jumped 7% to $477 billion.
For the first four months of the fiscal year, the deficit rose $72 billion, or 16%, to $532 billion as interest costs on the national debt rose. The Treasury said both receipts and outlays were records for the period, with receipts up $112 billion, or 8%, to $1.585 trillion, and outlays up $184 billion, or 10%, to $2.117 trillion....
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The next bit of positive comparison should be when the April (form 1040 month) numbers are reported in May, and then it is downhill from there.Depending on the timing of government expenditures the stimulating deficit could be as large as $2 trillion for the fiscal year that ends September 30, though the Administration is forecasting $1.5 trillion.
