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   From: robber.joe@nytimes.com   
      
   On 30 Dec 2023, Culture War  posted some   
   news:umpqia$1cfnh$12@dont-email.me:   
      
   > How much did he give Hunter?   
      
   WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Friday posted a   
   $1.695 trillion budget deficit in fiscal 2023, a 23% jump from the prior   
   year as revenues fell and outlays for Social Security, Medicare and   
   record-high interest costs on the federal debt rose.   
      
   The Treasury Department said the deficit was the largest since a COVID-   
   fueled $2.78 trillion gap in 2021. It marks a major return to ballooning   
   deficits after back-to-back declines during President Joe Biden's first   
   two years in office.   
      
   The deficit comes as Biden is asking Congress for $100 billion in new   
   foreign aid and security spending, including $60 billion for Ukraine and   
   $14 billion for Israel, along with funding for U.S. border security and   
   the Indo-Pacific region.   
      
   The big deficit, which exceeded all pre-COVID deficits, including those   
   brought about by Republican tax cuts passed under Donald Trump and from   
   the financial crisis years, is likely to enflame Biden's fiscal battles   
   with Republicans in the House of Representatives, whose demands for   
   spending cuts pushed the U.S. to the brink of default in early June over   
   the debt ceiling.   
      
   A deal to avoid a government shutdown over deeper spending cut demands   
   from Republican hardliners led to the ouster of U.S. House of   
   Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and the party is still divided   
   over who should lead them, which is expected to make negotiations ahead of   
   a new fiscal deadline in mid-November more difficult.   
      
   For September, the final month of the fiscal year, the deficit fell to   
   $171 billion from $430 billion in September 2022.   
      
   "Falling revenues are a significant contributor to the 2023 deficit,   
   underscoring the importance of President Biden's enacted and proposed   
   policies to reform the tax system," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and   
   Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young said in a joint   
   statement.   
      
   The fiscal 2023 deficit would have been $321 billion larger, but was   
   reduced by this amount because the Supreme Court struck down Biden's   
   student loan forgiveness program as unconstitutional. The ruling forced   
   the Treasury to reverse a pre-emptive charge against fiscal 2022 budget   
   results that increased that year's deficit.   
      
   The fiscal year 2022 deficit was $1.375 trillion.   
      
   Taking into account the two one-off adjustments, last fiscal year's   
   deficit would have been closer to $1 trillion and this year's closer to $2   
   trillion, a Treasury official said.   
      
   Reuters Graphics   
   Reuters Graphics   
   RECORD INTEREST COSTS   
   The 2023 deficit marks an abrupt end to two years of falling deficits for   
   Biden as COVID-19 spending faded. The U.S. deficit peaked in fiscal 2020   
   at $3.13 trillion as the sharpest downturn since the 1930s severely   
   constrained tax revenues while spending on unemployment benefits, direct   
   payments to consumers and aid to businesses peaked.   
      
   But the Congressional Budget Office has warned that based on current tax   
   and spending legislation, U.S. deficits will approach COVID-era levels by   
   the end of the decade, reaching some $2.13 trillion in 2030 as interest,   
   health and pension costs mount.   
      
   For the 2023 fiscal year, total revenues fell $457 billion, or 9% from   
   fiscal 2022, to $4.439 trillion, largely due to a drop in non-withheld   
   individual income tax payments amid a worse performance in stocks and   
   other financial assets as interest rates rose.   
      
   Other revenue declines included a $106 billion drop in Federal Reserve   
   earnings as interest paid on bank reserves ate up any portfolio income.   
      
   Fiscal 2023 outlays fell $137 billion, or 2% from the prior year to $6.134   
   trillion. Outlays would have been more modest were it not for large   
   increases in spending on retirement and healthcare benefits for the   
   elderly and in debt service costs.   
      
   Social Security spending rose 10% to $1.416 trillion due to cost of living   
   adjustments for inflation, and spending for the Medicare senior healthcare   
   program rose 4% to $1.022 trillion.   
      
   Interest costs on the more than $33 trillion in federal debt also rose   
   sharply, up 23% to $879 billion, a record. Net interest payments,   
   excluding intragovernmental transfers to trust funds, rose 39% to $659   
   billion, also a record, according to a Treasury official.   
      
      
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