U.S. budget deficit records 13.5 bln in December

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 . The U.S. federal budget deficit recorded 13.5 billion U.S. dollars in December, the Treasury Department said Wednesday.

That is about a 40-percent decline from the 23.2 billion dollars recorded in December the year before. Total outlays were down by 4 percent from the year before, and total revenues were down by 6.6 percent.

Total budget deficit for October, November and December, the first three months of the fiscal year 2019, recorded 318.9 billion dollars, up by 42 percent from the three months a year before.

The data was released about a month behind schedule due to the 35-day partial federal government shutdown which ended in late January.

The top three outlays for the month of December 2018 alone were 84 billion dollars on social security, 57 billion dollars on national defense and 48 billion dollars on health.
According to data released by the department on Tuesday, the U.S. public debt stands at 22.01 trillion dollars as of Feb. 11, reaching a record high.

Stephen Ellis, executive vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog, told Xinhua that debt to gross domestic product (GDP) is at a level not seen for decades.

“Without significant change, it is only going to get worse as the baby boomers retire and social security and Medicare spending increases,” Ellis said.
Analysts said the U.S. administration’s 1.5-trillion-dollar tax cut and increased government spending have fueled the rapid increase in budget deficits and public debt.

“As we borrow trillion after trillion, interest costs will weigh on our economy and make it harder to fund important investments for our future,” said Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a fiscal policy think tank.

“We already pay an average of 1 billion dollars every day in interest on the debt, and will spend a staggering 7 trillion dollars in interest costs over the next decade,” Peterson said in a statement.

A growing interest to service the debt will “crowd out other needed federal investments, and the borrowing will reduce capital flowing into private economic investments,” Ellis said.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last month estimated that federal budget deficit is about to reach 900 billion dollars in 2019 and will exceed 1 trillion dollars each year beginning in 2022.

Because of persistently large deficits, the public debt is projected to grow steadily, reaching 93 percent of U.S. GDP in 2029 and about 150 percent of U.S. GDP in 2049, according to the CBO.

“It is past time to get the country’s fiscal house in order,” Ellis said. “We don’t need to eliminate deficits and pay off the debt, we need to slow their growth and reduce them as a percentage of GDP.” Enditem