The U.S. budget deficit through the first three months of this budget year is up 11.8 percent from the same period a year ago, putting the country on track to record its first $1 trillion deficit in eight years, The Associated Press reported. In its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said that the deficit from October through December totaled $356.6 billion, up from $318.9 billion for the same period last year. Both government spending and revenues set records for the first three months of this budget year but spending rose at a faster clip than tax collections, pushing the deficit total up. The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the deficit for the current 2020 budget year will hit $1 trillion and will remain over $1 trillion for the next decade. The country has not experienced $1 trillion annual deficits since the period from 2009-12 following the 2008 financial crisis. The actual deficit for the 2019 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, was $984.4 billion, up 26 percent from the 2018 imbalance, reflecting the impact of the $1.5 trillion tax cut that President Donald Trump pushed through Congress in 2017 and increased spending for military and domestic programs that Trump accepted as part of a budget deal with Democrats.
