Budget Deficit Hits $53B in January
The Hill reports:
The federal government recorded a $53 billion budget deficit in January, bringing the total to $424 billion for the first four months of fiscal 2011, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
In its monthly budget review, the CBO said the shortfall is slightly less than the amount recorded during the same period last year.
The CBO estimates that if Congress doesn't enact any legislation affecting spending or revenues, the deficit will reach $1.5 trillion this year, about $200 billion more than the $1.3 trillion recorded for fiscal 2010.
"So yesterday's predictions by the CBO should be a wake-up call to anyone who thinks they can hide behind a spending freeze," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday on the Senate floor. "This is a dire warning that business as usual is a recipe for disaster. If we don't immediately reduce the size and scope of the federal government, the deficit will be even bigger than last year's record deficit."
Passage of an $858-billion comprehensive tax-cut extension package in December, which extends the 2001 and 2003 income tax cuts, is expected to add to the deficit the year, according to CBO.
Receipts for the first four months of fiscal 2011 were about $64 billion, 9 percent higher than the same time last year with nearly all of that increase from individual income and social insurance taxes, which together rose by $60 billion, or 10 percent.
Outlays were $57 billion, or 5 percent, higher during the first four months of fiscal year 2011 than in the same period last year, CBO estimates.
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