Federal Budget Deficit Totaled $905 Billion for the First Three Quarters of 2012, CBO Estimates

Posted on
July 9, 2012

CBO estimates in its latest Monthly Budget Review that the Treasury Department will report a deficit of $905 billion for the first nine months of fiscal year 2012, $66 billion less than the $971 billion deficit incurred through June 2011. Outlays are about 1 percent higher and revenues are about 5 percent higher than they were at the same point last year.

Without adjustments to the estimated cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program that increased outlays in 2012 by $21 billion and decreased outlays in 2011 by $42 billion, the deficit for the first nine months of fiscal year 2012 would have been around $130 billion less than the deficit incurred during the same period in fiscal year 2011.

The Monthly Budget Review is prepared by Elizabeth Cove Delisle, Barbara Edwards, Daniel Hoople, David Rafferty, and Joshua Shakin.