The federal budget deficit was $1.5 trillion in the first 10 months of fiscal year 2024, the Congressional Budget Office estimates—$103 billion less than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year. Revenues were $397 billion (or 11 percent) higher and outlays were $293 billion (or 6 percent) higher from October through July than they were during the same period in fiscal year 2023.
Shifts in the timing of certain payments affect that comparison. Outlays in the first 10 months of each fiscal year were reduced by shifts of some payments to September that otherwise would have been due on October 1, which fell on a weekend in both years. If not for those timing shifts, the deficit so far in fiscal year 2024 would have been $94 billion smaller than the shortfall for the same period in fiscal year 2023.
CBO projects a federal budget deficit of $1.9 trillion in fiscal year 2024. When adjusted to exclude the effects of shifts in the timing of certain payments, the projected 2024 deficit comes to $2.0 trillion.
Last year’s deficit of $1.7 trillion would have been larger if not for the recording of certain budgetary effects related to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a plan the Administration announced in 2022 to cancel many borrowers’ outstanding student loans. If those effects were excluded from fiscal year 2023, the deficit for that year would have been $2.0 trillion instead of $1.7 trillion. Thus, without the savings related to the unwinding of the proposed debt cancellation (and excluding the effects of timing shifts), CBO estimates that the federal deficit would be about the same in 2023 and 2024. Originally published at https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60479
