CBO Reports $83 Billion Deficit in First Month of Fiscal Year

The United States borrowed $83 billion in October, according to the latest Monthly Budget Review from the Congressional Budget Office.

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

We’re just one month into the new fiscal year, and we’ve already borrowed $2.7 billion per day. The debt is projected to continue to climb as we head for another year of a $1 trillion deficit. And that is assuming Congress doesn’t make things even worse.

We need an emergency action plan:

First, Congress should promise no more borrowing in 2022 – that is only two months, and further borrowing will make both the debt and the inflation situations worse.

Next, we should pass an actual budget in the coming year – something we have failed to do for the past seven fiscal years. Any Budget Committee Chair who fails to put forth a budget should be swiftly fired from the position.

We should increase the debt ceiling well before the deadline in the summer, even before the extraordinary measures are needed, and preferably along with measures that would actually decrease the debt at the same time. In the past, debt ceiling increases often went hand-in-hand with measures to decrease the debt. More recently, Congress has chosen to pass debt ceiling increases along with measures to increase the debt – cynical and opportunistic demonstrations of fiscal irresponsibility.

And finally, Congress and the President should work to put in place a debt and inflation reduction plan. We offer the CRFB Fiscal Blueprint as an option to show what that would require.

With numerous fiscal policy deadlines on the horizon – preventing a government shutdown, needing to raise the debt ceiling, and insolvency of the trust funds for our major government programs in just a few years – Congress and the President should treat these moments with the seriousness they deserve.

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