Federal Deficit Projected to Double This Year

The federal deficit is projected to roughly double this year from last, according to projections, which will be a historic jump, usually attributed to “major crises.”

President Joe Biden hailed the trimming of the post-COVID pandemic deficit from nearly $3 trillion in his first year to $1 trillion in his second — a number he falsely claimed was cutting the deficit, but its increase was merely slowing. The 2023 deficit appears to be headed for at least a doubling, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

The federal fiscal year, which ends after this month, has already run up a $2.2 trillion deficit thus far, and the doubling from last year was projected by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, according to the Post.

“The deficit will basically double from 2022 to 2023,” Senior Committee Vice President Marc Goldwein 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 2024 budget appropriations are set to be hashed out in Congress, setting up a difficult message for House and Senate Democrats’ plans to continue to increase spending for progressive initiatives.

Also, the data severely dampens Biden’s reelection narratives on the budget, according to the Post.

The doubling of the federal deficit from one year to the next is rare and usually the result of “major crises” like the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the start of the Obama-era Great Recession, or World War II, former President Barack Obama economist Jason Furman told the Post.

While former President Donald Trump and fiscal conservatives have long warned that spending by Biden and Democrats would explode the economy, spike inflation, and widely increase the federal deficit, Furman is perplexed 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,” Furman told the Post. “The fact that it is so big in one year makes you think it must be some weird freakish thing going on.”

But conservative bean counters call it simple bottom-line mathematics.

The U.S. government has spent $6.7 trillion and taken in just $4.5 trillion, a 16% increase in spending this year over 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,” Manhattan Institute economist Brian Riedl told the Post.