Within the first four months of the 2023 fiscal year, the federal government runs a $460 billion budget deficit according to the Treasury Department. This would mark a $39 billion increase on Friday.
The government between October and January raised through tax revenues around $1.47 trillion, this marks a 3% decrease from the amount raised last year over those same months. Spending for the first four months was also around $1.9 trillion, marking a 9% increase from the amount spent during that same period last year.
On Friday the Treasury Department issued its monthly statement with this information. While there is a year-to-year increase visible in these numbers, January’s deficit was decisively smaller than the $85 billion budget deficit in December and the $249 billion budget deficit in November.
However, currently, the Treasury department is supposedly using “extraordinary measures” in order to avoid having the federal government default on its debt after hitting the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling in January. Congress is currently in negotiations for increasing the debt ceiling so that the federal government is able to continue covering its spending needs.
While President Biden wants the increase of the debt ceiling to occur with no other conditions being placed, the GOP is saying that they will only agree to an increase if it is accompanied by a reduction in spending.
The Democrats are calling out the Republicans as only using this as a ploy to get rid of Medicare and Social Security, however, the Republicans have repeatedly denied this and even noted that those two programs are not on the table in the discussions about budget spending cuts.
