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Les chiffres nouveaux
Oct. 9th, 2020 06:55 pmAmong all the other news in the past week, the U.S. Federal Government started a new fiscal year on Oct. 1. So in keeping with Time Honored Tradition, I've updated my web page about Federal budget deficits.
In brief, before COVID-19 hit the U.S., fiscal 2019-2020 was already on track to have the second highest budget deficit in history (behind 2008-2009; all figures are inflation adjusted). That's what I get by extrapolating linearly from the first three months of fiscal 2019-2020, by the end of which China was getting hit hard but there wasn't yet a confirmed case in the U.S. And that deficit was already on track to be twice the 2018-2019 deficit, which was slightly larger than 2017-2018's deficit, which was twice 2016-2017's deficit.
But including the effects of COVID-19 (the tax revenue losses and the special spending), fiscal 2019-2020's deficit more than doubles again over the doubling it was already doing.
In brief, before COVID-19 hit the U.S., fiscal 2019-2020 was already on track to have the second highest budget deficit in history (behind 2008-2009; all figures are inflation adjusted). That's what I get by extrapolating linearly from the first three months of fiscal 2019-2020, by the end of which China was getting hit hard but there wasn't yet a confirmed case in the U.S. And that deficit was already on track to be twice the 2018-2019 deficit, which was slightly larger than 2017-2018's deficit, which was twice 2016-2017's deficit.
But including the effects of COVID-19 (the tax revenue losses and the special spending), fiscal 2019-2020's deficit more than doubles again over the doubling it was already doing.
