Treasury Reports $1.4 Trillion Deficit For First 9 Months of Fiscal Year 2023

The United States borrowed $1.4 trillion in the first nine months of fiscal year 2023, including $228 billion in June, according to the latest Monthly Treasury Statement from the Treasury Department.

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

In the past nine months, we’ve borrowed more than last fiscal year, and in the past 12 months, we’ve borrowed an astounding $2.3 trillion. How can anyone possibly think this trend is sustainable?

Our debt addiction of more than $5 billion per day will be hard to come down from, but it is vital that we do so for both current and future generations. As of this month, we’ve now spent more on interest on the debt than we did for the entire previous fiscal year, and we are projected to spend more on interest payments in the next decade than we will on the entire defense budget. We’re on track to have interest be the single largest line item in the budget by 2051 – larger than our two current biggest programs, Social Security and Medicare.

What we need is a return to budgeting basics: an honest and productive conversation between our nation’s leaders that puts all parts of budget on the table, abandons the partisan demagoguing, and treats the process with the seriousness the American people deserve. A fiscal commission would be a natural fit for accomplishing this, and we should put one together soon.

With debt projected to shatter records in a few years, the trust funds for Social Security and Medicare facing insolvency in a decade, and interest payments set to dominate the entire budget by mid-century, we’re running off the rails at an alarming rate. Perpetually shifting our responsibilities to tomorrow shows a failure of leadership unbefitting of the United States government. We need to do better. 

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For more information, please contact Kim McIntyre, Director of Media Relations, at mcintyre@crfb.org.