(The Center Square) – The federal government spent $1.8 trillion more than it collected in tax revenue in fiscal year 2024, according to figures released Friday by U.S. Treasury Department.
Congress has run a deficit every year since 2001. In the past 50 years, the federal government has ended with a fiscal year-end budget surplus four times, most recently in 2001.
The deficit for fiscal 2024 was $1.8 trillion, or $138 billion higher than the prior year’s deficit. As a percentage of GDP, the deficit was 6.4%, an increase from 6.2% in fiscal 2023. The 2024 deficit is $196 billion lower than in 2023, excluding the effect of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Biden v. Nebraska regarding student loan programs, according to year-end data from the September 2024 Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government.
The fiscal year 2024 deficit was $76 billion below the baseline estimate of $1.91 trillion in the 2024 budget published in March, and $144 billion lower than the baseline estimate of $1.98 trillion in the Mid-Session Review, a supplemental update to the budget published in July.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said that is equal to borrowing about $5 billion a day, adding daily to the nation’s $35.76 trillion debt.
“We’re borrowing nearly double the amount we borrowed annually before the pandemic, and this is projected to grow indefinitely,” she said. “This is no way to run a country. In fact, the way we have been running the country is we don’t pass budgets; we don’t pay for new policies; we don’t address our major entitlement programs, which are facing insolvency; and we tolerate the two major presidential candidates competing over who can promise to give away more.”
Both leading major party presidential candidates – Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump – have proposed spending and taxation programs that would add to the federal deficit.
The Committee for A Responsible Federal Budget, a nonprofit group, estimates that both Harris’ plan and Trump’s plan would increase the debt. The group estimated that Trump’s plan would cost more than double Harris’ plan. It also noted areas of marked uncertainty in both candidates’ plans. Harris’ plan would increase the debt by $3.50 trillion through 2035, while Trump’s plan would increase the debt by $7.50 trillion, according to the Committee for A Responsible Federal Budget’s analysis.
In fiscal year 2024, the U.S. government spent nearly $900 billion on interest on the debt alone.
“That’s more than we spent on national defense, Medicare, and children at the federal level – just a truly astounding figure,” MacGuineas said. “The national debt is on track to reach a record share of the economy in just two years, a sobering milestone for both the next Congress and whoever wins the presidency in November.”
The next president will take over the nation’s $35.2 trillion in debt.
Congress has continued to spend money it doesn’t have despite warnings.
Earlier this month, credit-rating agency Moody’s sounded the alarm.
“The incoming administration will face a deteriorating U.S. fiscal outlook, as declining debt affordability will gradually weaken U.S. fiscal strength,” Moody’s warned in a recent report. “In the absence of policy measures that can curb these trends and help limit fiscal deficits, deteriorating fiscal strength will increasingly weigh on the U.S. sovereign credit profile.”
Neither presidential candidate has outlined specific plans to address the national debt before the Nov. 5 presidential election.
In March, the Congressional Budget Office projected the deficit would reach 8.5% of gross domestic product by 2054.
The International Monetary Fund warned in May that U.S. government spending and increasing national debt were not sustainable and could hurt the global economy.
In February, a Congressional watchdog told President Joe Biden and Congress that the federal government was on an “unsustainable long-term fiscal path.”
Moody’s projected growing deficits without significant changes.
“We expect the federal government to run large fiscal deficits that average around 7% of GDP per year over the next five years and rise to nearly 9% by 2034, which would drive the debt burden to around 130% of GDP by 2034 from 97% in 2023,” the report noted.
The cost of servicing that debt will also grow.
“We expect federal interest payments relative to revenue and GDP to double to around 30% and 5% by 2034, respectively, from 14.8% and 2.4% in 2023,” according to the report.
Congress and the next president will start 2025 facing two key financial challenges: the reinstatement of the debt limit, the end of discretionary spending caps, and the expiration of large parts of the tax code set in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
“We need to put our national debt on a downward sustainable trajectory,” MacGuineas said. “Failure to do so will result in a smaller economy, higher interest rates, increased geopolitical threats, generational inequity, and a higher likelihood of a fiscal crisis.”
Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen praised the Biden administration for its budget work.
“The Biden-Harris Administration remains focused on our economy’s long-term growth, which includes sustaining historic investments in infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and clean energy while also addressing our long-term fiscal outlook,” she said in a statement. “The Budget put forward by President Biden reduces the deficit by $3 trillion by asking corporations and the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share, while preserving our important investments in our country’s future.”
This debt death by a thousand cuts is just the up close and personal personified manifestation of Obama Chicago Community organizer mentor Saul Alinsky’s rules for radicals.
Rule 2)
Poverty – Increase the Poverty level as high as possible,
poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
Rule 3)
Debt– Increase the debt to an unsustainable level.. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
When your Conservative based and run country begins to get American prosperous, this becomes a threat to the Democrat Party of poverty pandering, so they MUST import more poverty to remain in control of elections, which the more the Conservative policies make your county strong and powerful, the more radical and aggressive must the Democrat party response MUST be to counter in imported poverty what success is earned by the degraded lawbreaking illegal immigrant, who soon ultimately becomes successful when exposed to the American truths that set them and us, free of the Socialist controllers who now run this once great, but degraded Democrat party run nation, taken over to the point where individual SELF-governing ability leads to successful collective Self-governing as our founders intended, is viewed by democrats as the very enemy that will destroy the democrat party power in the end.
AND ENSURE those voting KNOW “ONLY IF WE stay in power, will your free ride remain”…
I believe Egypt had a famine in the middle dynasty that allowed Pharoah to corner all the food and money.
That enabled him to become a certified god.
The hungrier you are the more obvious their deity becomes.
It is amazing that such a large percentage of the population does not understand the importance of securing our financial future. America is the most prosperous country in the world, and we seem to think that it is a given that it will remain that way. The reality seems to be the issue of unpayable public debt is not even on the voting radar of most people. When the dominoes start to fall and credit goes to hell it will have a catastrophic impact on the general public. People understand the impact of personal bankruptcy, but seem to think the government has some kind of permanent get out of jail card because of its ability to tax. Deficit spending is a legitimate cancer on the health of the country.
That is because
A) THEY Hate this nation
B) they don’t CARE
C) they figure “ITS NOT my problem”.
“The reality seems to be the issue of unpayable public debt is not even on the voting radar of most people.”
Unburdened by what has been. I hope we don’t have to live on Joy alone.
Not the least bit surprised. The gubment is known for its irresponsible and corrupt spending. On July 30 of this year the US Federal Debt topped $35 trillion. It is now less than 1/4 of a trillion dollars from $36 trillion. So it took less than three months ( 80 days by my calculation) to go past 3/4 a trillion dollars. At that rate (and the rate is increasing) we will pass $36 trillion on or about November 13th. I thought with a Repo controlled House and a Repo Speaker some responsible legislation would be passed. You know smaller gubment, lower spending, reduced taxes, less intrusion. I was obviously wrong, very wrong. Johnson should face the same fate as his predecessor- fire his gluteus maximus.
The Democrat majority Senate simply ignores any pending Republican bills.
Yep.. THEY just refuse to bring them to a vote…
Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen praised the Biden administration for its budget work.
This woman needs to retire, her brains have been infected with extreme B.S.
How about the Government taking 30% of ALL political notations and pay down our national debt. Ok, I know that will NEVER happen, but at least it’s a thought! Something our current members in the Congress and Senate are today rarely doing to current our problems.
how’s about EVERY YEAR THEY FAIL TO pay down any of our debt, EVERY ONE IN GOVT loses 50% of their pay!
Your government is spending money they steal from future generations, they have already spent your money years ago, and the useful idiots keep voting the same crooked criminals into power to keep stealing!
Because they LOVE their “Free stuff”..
Our national debt is the elephant in the room. No one wants to talk about it, and no one wants to deal with it. Politicians can’t talk about reducing the deficit without talking about cutting government programs. That enrages many Americans who are benefiting from a variety of giveaway programs. Washington knows that eventually this problem will get too big to ignore and that it will demand attention, but they are more worried about who will get the blame for forcing austerity on voters than actually solving the problem.