The Annual Federal Deficit To Reach $1 Trillion This Year

(Cartoon image on government spending is from 02varvara.wordpress.com.)

We knew the Republican tax reform (giveaway to the rich) was going to balloon the deficit and the national debt, but it's happening much faster than predicted. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had originally predicted that the annual budget deficits would reach $1 trillion a year starting in 2020. They now admit they were wrong, and it will happen this year.

Through the first 11 months of this fiscal year (10/17 through 8/18), the budget deficit was $895 billion. That's $222 billion more than through the first 11 months of last year. And the huge increase can't be blamed on spending. Spending only rose by 7%, while the deficit rose by 33%. The biggest reason, by far, is the cut in taxes for the rich and the corporations. When September (the 12th month of this fiscal year) is figured in, the CBO expects the deficit for this year to reach $1 trillion dollars -- and continue to be above a trillion dollars for every year after that.

The Republicans, if they remain in power, will now try to gut all the programs that help ordinary Americans to pay for their giveaway to the rich -- and we can expect that to include Social Security and Medicare (along with food stamps, housing assistance, education, etc.).

This makes it very important to vote them out of power this November. It's only the Democrats who can protect social program spending and fix the GOP's tax reform mess.