Fact Check: Did the Federal Budget Deficit Double in Just One Year Under Biden?
CORRECTION, Oct. 24, 2023: The Treasury Department applied $400 billion from student loans that were never canceled to the 2023 budget. An earlier version of this article had a different number.
A new report shows that the federal deficit has mushroomed in the past year — though how much it mushroomed largely depends on the math applied to it.
When CNN went to look at the math, it started with the fiscal 2023 budget deficit of $1.7 trillion, based on Treasury Department figures for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.
But that figure relies on some very interesting deficit math.
The Treasury Department listed the official fiscal 2022 deficit as $1.4 trillion because it included the impact of the student loan forgiveness program shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
With that not in the picture, the 2022 deficit was about $1 trillion, CNN reported.
The Treasury took that $400 billion from the student loans that were never canceled and applied it to 2023, which then resulted in lowering the 2023 deficit to $1.7 trillion. With the student loan money applied to 2022 and not 2023, the result is that the annual budget deficit doubled from about $1 trillion to about $2.1 trillion.
The deficit explodes to 1.7 trillion higher then projected. Bidenomics is crushing our economy, the working class, private business and destroying the American dollar! Every thing the man touches turns to 💩! https://t.co/aVHpCzAbhh
— Brooklyn (@FlorabamaB) October 21, 2023
“We are a nation addicted to debt,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said. “With the economy growing and unemployment near record lows, this was the time to instill fiscal responsibility and reduce our deficits.”
The nation’s hefty debt load will become even costlier in the coming years as interest payments rise.
Michael Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, said debt is consuming vast quantities of tax revenue.
“Interest costs rose almost 40 percent last year, and soon we’ll spend more on interest than we do on national defense,” he said.
Our budget deficit is $1.7 TRILLION.
Congress must stop its reckless spending sprees, address unauthorized federal programs, and cut down on massive waste, fraud, and abuse if we are ever going to save this country from eventual default. https://t.co/7cFa4XNvyn
— Rep. Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) October 16, 2023
Bernard Yaros, lead U.S. economist for Oxford Economics, said the deficit took an indirect hit from inflation through an 8.7 percent cost of living adjustment for Social Security recipients and noted that entitlements make up a quarter of all spending.
The 2023 deficit helped the national debt top $33 trillion, according to The New York Times.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that by 2053, federal government debt held by the public will amount to 177 percent of gross domestic product.
“I believe we’ve reached a defining moment — our fiscal affairs are completely off track,” Kent Conrad, a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said last week. “Rising deficits and debt are an economic and a national security concern.”
Don’t see many mainstream headlines on it but …
National debt just hit $100,000 per person & budget deficit has basically *doubled* in a year. It’s now a stunning $2 trillion dollars.
Because interest rates are also rising, we could soon be paying one TRILLION per year in…
— Brian Sullivan (@SullyCNBC) October 20, 2023
Republican Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas, who chairs the House Budget Committee, said something has to give.
“It’s the mandatory spending and the entitlement programs that are really driving the debt, and that if we don’t address them we’ll truly bankrupt this country,” he said.
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