The US is starting the 2021 budget year the way the old year ended, with soaring deficits. The Treasury Department reported Thursday that the federal government ran up a record October deficit of USD 284.1 billion, double the red ink of the same month a year ago, as revenues declined while spending to deal with the impact of the coronavirus soared.

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The October deficit was double the USD 134.5 billion deficit logged in October 2019. It smashed the previous October record of a USD 176 billion deficit set in 2009, when the government was spending heavily to lift the country out of a deep recession caused by the 2008 financial crisis. The deficit for the 2020 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, totalled a record USD 3.1 trillion, breaking the old mark for an annual deficit of USD 1.4 trillion set in 2009.

The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that this year’s deficit will remain above the USD 1 trillion level, coming in at USD 1.8 trillion, the second largest annual deficit on record but an improvement over the USD 3.1 trillion set in 2020. Private economists said the actual deficit this year will depend on a number of factors including whether Congress is able to narrow the differences between Democrats and Republicans to pass more coronavirus relief measures.

The outlook for the deficit for the full fiscal year depends heavily on the course of the pandemic, the economic recovery and whether additional stimulus measures are passed, said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics. She said that if Congress approved another USD 1 trillion in economic support that could push the deficit to USD 2.5 trillion next year.For October, spending totalled USD 521.8 billion, up 37.3 percent from a year ago and a record for the month. Big increases were seen in various government agencies working to blunt the economic downturn from the coronavirus pandemic.

Revenues fell by 3.2 percent to USD 237.7 billion, reflecting in part a USD 14 billion decline in personal income tax collections, as millions of people who have lost jobs during the pandemic are no longer having taxes withheld from paychecks. The government’s budget year runs from October through September.

Congress has been deadlocked on passage of another virus relief bill since this summer with Democrats pushing for more money than Republicans are willing to spend. The election of Joe Biden as president has so far not unblocked the impasse with Democrats calling for the GOP to resume negotiations on a USD 2.4 trillion bill that was passed by the House in May. The October deficit, while a record for the month, was far below the all-time monthly record of USD 864.1 billion set in June as the spending on the USD 3 trillion in coronavirus support measures passed by Congress ramped up.

In a September report, the CBO forecast annual deficits will remain above USD 1 trillion through 2030.

First Published:Nov 13, 2020 7:31 AM IST