The fiscal year is set to end on September 30 and the deficit is expected to be $56 billion more than what the Congressional Budget Office projected. According to Reuters, slow growth in revenues and more spending on entitlement programs mucked up the original numbers:
The U.S. budget deficit is expected to grow to $590 billion in fiscal year 2016 due to slower than expected growth in revenues and higher spending for programs including Social Security and Medicare, the Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.The estimate, which is $56 billion larger than CBO's forecast in March, shows the deficit increasing in relation to economic output for the first time since 2009. CBO said the deficit is expected to be $152 billion higher than in 2015 and will equal 3.2 percent of economic output.
The deficit peaked at $1.4 trillion in 2009 and shrank to $485 billion in 2014.
The nonpartisan research agency also said that debt held by the public will amount to nearly 77 percent of gross domestic product by the end of 2016, three percentage points higher than last year and its highest ratio since 1950.
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Yes, we all hear President Obama boasting about how he shrunk the deficit in half, but the deficit has gotten worse and the national debt is approaching $20 trillion. The administration likes to frame themselves as saviors of an economy, which is in recovery. Many Americans simply don’t feel it. An argument could be made that Obama stopped us from going over the cliff, but the second part of that is pushing us up the hill to a true recovery. He’s been disappointing in that regard.
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