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Also see: debt / government debt;
Jump to: 2016; 2017; 2018; 2019;
Undated: The deficit reflects the gap between how much the government brings in and what it spends. A positive balance is called a government budget surplus, and a negative balance is a government budget deficit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_budget_balance
-- 2016 --
July 11: Trump's budget: Making the deficit great again
His proposals are a series of puzzle pieces that don’t fit together into a coherent whole, according to experts on both sides of the aisle.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/donald-trump-budget-deficit-225389
-- 2017 --
January 24: CBO’s estimate of the deficit for 2017 has decreased since August 2016, when the agency issued its previous estimates, primarily because mandatory spending is expected to be lower than earlier anticipated. However, the current projection for the cumulative deficit for the 2017–2026 period is about the same as that reported in August.
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52370
February 28: Trump outlined his priorities in a speech to a joint session of Congress
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/01/politics/kfile-ingraham-pence-interview/?iid=ob_article_footer_expansion
March 1: Ingraham asks Pence if he’s now a ‘deficit dove’ following Trump’s proposals to increase spending
An overwhelming majority of speech-viewers liked President Donald Trump’s speech before Congress Tuesday night, but conservative radio host Laura Ingraham is pressing Vice President Mike Pence on how all the proposals will be paid for.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/03/01/ingraham-asks-pence-if-hes-now-a-deficit-dove-following-trumps-proposals-to-increase-spending
March 1: Conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham pressed Vice President Mike Pence in an interview ... on how the Trump administration would pay for all its proposed initiatives without adding to the federal deficit.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/01/politics/kfile-ingraham-pence-interview/?iid=ob_article_footer_expansion
May 30: [It can be said] of trade deficits: while it's easy to see them as some sort of an international scoreboard of who's winning or losing at trade, they are neither entirely good nor entirely bad.
http://www.npr.org/2017/05/30/530747971/trump-is-worried-about-the-trade-deficit-with-germany-he-shouldnt-be
June 3: TRUMP’s new problem: CEOs fall out of love
https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/playbook/2017/06/03/trumps-new-problem-ceos-fall-out-of-love-first-in-playbook-the-putin-interviews-oliver-stones-new-showtime-special-the-long-game-mueller-expands-probe-vogel-to-nyt-anderson-cooper-is-5-0-220642
July 27:
A conservative web site accurately describes a remarkable decline in the debt since January 2017, but offers no evidence that the President is responsible for it.
Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, dismissed any claims that President Trump is responsible:
Trump hasn’t legislated anything that would have any impact on the fiscal accounts, so it simply doesn’t make sense on the face it.
October 20: The federal deficit for fiscal year 2017, which ended last month, hit $666 billion, according to new numbers released Friday by the Treasury Department and White House budget office ... That's $80 billion higher than the year before ... The deficit reached 3.5% of the size of the economy, or GDP. In 2016, the deficit was 3.2% of GDP.
"These numbers should serve as a smoke alarm for Washington, a reminder that we need to grow our economy again and get our fiscal house in order. We can do that through smart spending restraint, tax reform and cutting red tape," [White House Budget Director Mick] Mulvaney said.
At the same time, they are also promoting a tax reform framework that could add trillions in debt if its tax cuts are not offset and don't generate the kind of growth that the most optimistic estimates may suggest.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/20/news/economy/deficit-2017/index.html
-- 2018 --
January 31: An Even Bigger Budget Deficit And National Debt Are On The Way ... Trump, who likes to refer to himself and his administration with superlatives, is very likely to be the biggest deficit- and debt-increasing president of all time.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stancollender/2018/01/31/trumps-sotu-an-even-bigger-budget-deficit-and-national-debt-are-on-the-way/#ed84cb950da2
February 12: Trump’s Budget Proposal Projects Big Jump in Deficits
Forecast shortfall next year is double the level White House estimated a year ago, amid efforts to cut taxes, boost military spending
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-proposes-4-4-trillion-budget-for-fiscal-2019-1518455590
February 13: Trump's Proposed Budget Gives Up Fight Against Deficit Spending ... Trump's budget concedes that ... tax revenues will not catch up to spending as far as the eye can see.
https://www.npr.org/2018/02/13/585540515/trumps-proposed-budget-gives-up-fight-against-deficit-spending
February 13: Trump’s budget balloons deficits, cuts social safety net
https://apnews.com/e50aec4820da4e30aed4bea9ff440e86
February 14: White House press aides are claiming President Donald Trump’s budget contains trillions in “deficit reduction,” when it actually calls for larger deficits for the next several years and would add $7 trillion to the national debt over 10 years.
https://www.factcheck.org/2018/02/trumps-deficit-reduction/
March 12: Trump notches worst deficit since Great Recession
The federal fiscal picture took a giant step backward in February, notching a one-month deficit of more than $200 billion ...
Treasury Department numbers released Monday showed the government spent $370.9 billion last month, but collected just $155.6 billion in revenue, leaving a $215.2 billion deficit.
It’s the biggest shortfall since February 2012, when the government was still doling out stimulus cash while trying to dig out of the Wall Street collapse-fueled Great Recession.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/12/trump-notches-worst-deficit-great-recession/
April 8: Trump Trillion-Dollar Budget Deficits Officially Begin This Week
The new U.S. normal of $1 trillion or more annual federal budget deficits will officially begin this week when the Congressional Budget Office releases its economic and budget outlook report showing that the deficit will be at least that high every year Donald Trump is president.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stancollender/2018/04/08/trump-trillion-dollar-budget-deficits-officially-begin-this-week/#168ab0b33659
April 9: Trump promised to eliminate the deficit, it’s set to rise to $1 trillion
He has his beloved tax cut to thank.
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-deficit-breaks-promises-aafedb5302c1/
April 9: US deficit to approach $1tn after Trump tax cuts and spending bill, CBO says
Congressional Budget Office says economic growth from tax cuts will only partially offset deficit cost, despite White House claims
The report paints an unrelentingly bleak picture of federal deficits, which would permanently breach $1tn in 2020 without action by Congress. The government would borrow about 19 cents of every dollar it spends this year. Deficits would grow to $1.5tn by 2028 – and could exceed $2tn if the tax cuts are fully extended and if Washington does not cut spending.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/09/us-deficit-trump-tax-cuts-trillion-cbo-projection
April 16: How Congress’s and Trump’s latest deficit binge paved the way for the next one
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
May 19: US, China agree to reduce $370B trade deficit
It was unclear how much the deficit would be reduced by.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/us-china-agree-to-reduce-370b-trade-deficit
September 18: Another measure of an economy’s health is the deficit-to-GDP ratio. In other words, how much a country is earning vs. how much it is spending. The measure ballooned to 9.8 percent in 2009 when the recession was at its peak and the stimulus act was passed. By 2016, it had gone down to 3.1 percent. In Trump’s first year, it went up to 3.4 percent. That’s unusual, because the economy is doing well, but it reflects the impact of Trump’s tax cut on government revenue. The increase in the federal deficit may make it hard for the government to respond to the next economic crisis. So if Trump is taking credit for the impact of the tax cut on economic growth, he needs to accept blame for the boost in the deficit.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/18/trump-economy-versus-obama-economy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a4f56d6ec38b
October 11: Mnuchin: Democrats, not Trump's tax bill, to blame for deficits
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/11/politics/mnuchin-budget-deficit/
October 16: Trump Hits A New High-Water Mark: The Biggest Federal Deficit In 6 Years
The federal deficit has soared 17 percent in the president’s first fiscal year.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-deficit-highest-six-years_us_5bc545ece4b0a8f17ee4c5d6
December 6: Trade deficit hits 10-year high as China shuns soybeans, Americans snap up imports
Trade deficit rises to $55.5 billion in October, which is highest since 2008 ... amid a record shortfall with China, keeping the U.S. on pace to record the largest annual gap in a decade.
Imports rose 0.2% to a record $266.5 billion in October. The U.S. imported more autos, drugs and other consumer goods
Part of the recent surge in imports reflects American companies stocking up on Chinese goods ahead of the holidays to get ahead of another increase in U.S. tariffs that was supposed to kick in on Jan. 1. The U.S. tariff increase has been temporarily been postponed until March.
Exports slipped 0.1% to $211 billion, largely because of a big drop in soybean shipments. Retaliatory tariffs by China has curbed U.S. exports of big sellers such as soybeans.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-trade-deficit-climbs-to-10-year-high-despite-tariffs-tough-trump-stance-2018-12-06
-- 2019 --
January 15: The Trump administration's protectionist trade policies were supposed to reduce America's trade deficit with China—or, at least, that's what President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed—but new data shows that the gap between how much America imports from China and how much it exports to China hit a new record high at the end of 2018.
China's trade surplus with the U.S. was $323 billion in 2018, according to figures released this week by the Chinese government. That's a 17 percent increase from 2017. China said that its exports to the U.S. grew by 11.3 percent during 2018 (despite Trump's tariffs), while imports from the U.S. climbed by only 0.7 percent last year.
https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/15/americas-trade-deficit-with-china-just-h
February 13: The federal budget deficit in December totaled $13.5 billion, helping to push the deficit for the first three months of this budget year up 41.8 percent from the same period the previous year.
The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the budget deficit from October through December totals $318.9 billion, up from a deficit of $225 billion for the same three months in the previous year.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/u-s-budget-deficit-running-over-40-percent-higher-than-last-year
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