CBO estimates in its latest Monthly Budget Review that the Treasury Department will report a deficit of $975 billion for the first 10 months of fiscal year 2012, $125 billion less than the $1.1 trillion deficit incurred through July 2011. Through the end of July, revenues were about 6 percent higher this year than at the same point last year; outlays were about the same in both years.
Because October 1, 2011, occurred on a Saturday, roughly $31 billion in payments that would have been made in 2012 were made in 2011. In the absence of that shift, the deficit so far this year would have been about $93 billion smaller than last year’s figure at the same point in time.
The Monthly Budget Review is prepared by Elizabeth Cove Delisle, Barbara Edwards, Daniel Hoople, David Rafferty, and Joshua Shakin.