The federal deficit of the United States is projected to roughly double this year over last, according to projections, which will be a historic jump and usually attributed to a “major crises.”
President Joe Biden hailed the trimming of the post-Covid pandemic deficit from almost $3 trillion in the first year to $1 trillion in his second — the number he falsely claimed was cutting the deficit, but the increase was only slowing. According to a Sunday report by the Washington Post, the 2023 deficit appears to be heading for at least doubling.
The federal fiscal year, which will end after this month, has already run up a $2.2 trillion deficit so far, and the doubling from last year was predicted by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, according to the Post.
“The deficit will basically double from 2022 to 2023,” Marc Goldwein, Committee Vice President, told the Post. “This should prompt a serious evaluation of federal policy going forward, though I worry it won’t.”
The revelations come as the budget appropriations for 2024 are set to be hashed out in Congress, setting up a complex message for Senate and House Democrats’ plans to continue to increase spending for progressive initiatives.
Additionally, the data severely dampens President Biden’s reelection narratives on the budget, said the Post.
Federal deficit’s doubling in one year rare and the result of a “major crises”
The federal deficit’s doubling from one year to the next is rare. Usually, the result of “major crises” like the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, World War II, and the beginning of the Obama-era Great Recession, Jason Furman, former President Barack Obama economist, told the Post.
While former President Donald Trump and fiscal conservatives have long warned that spending by Democrats and Biden would spike inflation, explode the economy, and widely increase the federal deficit, Furman is puzzled that his political opposition was right.
“To see this in an economy with low unemployment is truly stunning — there’s never been anything like it: a good and strong economy, with no new emergency spending, and yet a deficit like this,” said Furman to the Post. “The fact that it is so bin in one year makes you think it must be some weird freakish thing going on.”
However, conservative bean counters call it simple bottom-line mathematics.
The government of the U.S. has spent $6.7 trillion and taken in just $4.5 trillion, a 16% increase in spending this year compared to last, and a 7% decrease in revenue, according to the report.
“A debt growing much faster than the economy will drive up interest rates, reduce economic investment, and over time make interest payments the largest federal expenditure — risking a federal debt crisis,” said Brian Riedl, Manhattan Institute economist.
