CBO Reports $225 Billion Deficit for April

For Immediate Release

The Federal government ran a budget deficit of $225 billion in April, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), bringing the total deficit to $1.9 trillion for the first seven months of the fiscal year. The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

The COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn called for a fast and strong response. While more work may still need to be done to end the pandemic and assure a full economic recovery, policymakers have now spent what is necessary to support the recovery – and then some. Going forward, we need to begin to focus on getting our fiscal house in order.

This fiscal year so far, we’ve been borrowing an average of $275 billion per month. That is truly massive, and it is driving our debt to new records. What is just galling is that we are doing this without even an attempt by Congress or the President to get an actual budget in place.

While much of this borrowing was justified in light of the pandemic, we can’t keep putting such massive charges on the national credit card. It’s time to start paying for new initiatives and beginning the honest conversation about how we’re going to stem growing debt over the longer term.

We can’t keep passing multi-trillion-dollar borrowing packages, particularly if we’re running the country without a budget and without a plan to deal with our finances.

It’s time to get back to budgeting.

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For more information, please contact Ben Tomchik, deputy chief of staff, at tomchik@crfb.org.