One month ago we already knew that the U.S. budget deficit for the 2018 fiscal year – Trump’s first full year in office – would be jarring after the August deficit soared to $211 billion, nearly double the deficit gap from one year ago (largely due to calendar quirks) which on a cumulative basis for the first 11 months of the fiscal year was a staggering $895 billion, $222 billion or 39% more than the previous year. This was largely due to outlays which climbed 7% while revenue rose a mere 1%.

Today at 2pm we got official confirmation of the rapid expansion in the US budget deficit when the Treasury announced that in Trumps first full fiscal year as president, the U.S. budget deficit grew 17% to $779 billion from $666 billion…

… the highest full year total since 2012 amid tax cuts and spending increases, if below the trailing 12 month total as of August which, as noted above, was a whopping $895 billion.

The budget gap for the 12 month period ended September was 17% greater than the same 12-month period a year earlier, as spending rose 3.2% and revenue gained just 0.4%.

The deficit as a share of GDP was 3.9% in fiscal 2018, up 0.4% point from the prior year.

To fund this deficit, the U.S. government borrowed $1.08 trillion from the public in Fiscal 2018, more than double the amount borrowed in 2017 ($498.3 billion) and the most borrowed from the public in a fiscal year since FY’12.

There was some good news: contrary to more pessimistic expectations, the surplus for the fiscal year’s final month of September jumped to $119 billion, the largest windfall for the last month of any fiscal year on record. However, like in August, there were calendar effects in play – and if not for timing shifts, last month’s surplus would have been just $44BN, $7BN (13%) less than Sep ’17 surplus.

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