U.S. sees $214B surplus in April
Tax receipts give lift, but $804B deficit predicted for fiscal year
WASHINGTON — The federal government saw a budget surplus of $214.3 billion in April, primarily reflecting the added revenue from that month’s annual tax filing deadline.
On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department reported that last month’s surplus was up 17.4 percent compared with the same month a year ago. The April surplus reflected both an increase in tax revenue and a decrease in the costs of certain health care and benefit programs that were pulled forward to March.
Federal income tax returns were due on April 17. The month usually generates a surplus even if the government is on pace to run a deficit for the entire year. The government collected $314 billion in individual income taxes in April, about $100 billion more than what it received from all its revenue sources in March.
However, for the first half of the current federal budget year, which began Oct. 1, the budget deficit totaled $385.44 billion — up 12 percent compared with the same period last year, an increase largely driven by the tax cuts signed into law by President Donald Trump.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the budget deficit for fiscal 2018, which ends Sept. 30, will total $804 billion, a $140 billion increase from fiscal 2017. The yearly federal budget deficit is projected to approach $1 trillion in 2019 and remain above that threshold for the foreseeable future.
Accumulating budget deficits add to the overall federal debt, which totalled more than $21.04 trillion as of Wednesday. That figure includes more than $5.6 trillion the government owes itself, including about $2.8 trillion borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund, according to Treasury Department reports.
In an April report, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the national debt will reach more than $33 trillion by 2028.
Thursday’s Treasury Department report said that in the first six months of the fiscal year, government outlays rose 5.3 percent compared with the same period a year ago, from $2.27 trillion to $2.39 trillion. Receipts rose at a slower pace, 4.1 percent, comparing the same six-month periods, from $1.93 trillion to $2.01 trillion.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration sent lawmakers a proposal to eliminate more than $15 billion in authorized, but unspent funding from the budget after many conservative GOP members criticized the $1.3 trillion catchall spending bill enacted in March for fiscal 2018 as too bloated.
The proposal would use the money to pay for other budget priorities. House Republican leaders hope to pass the measure this month, but it faces more resistance in the narrowly divided Senate.