The Federal Government ran a deficit of -$262B in February. Ignoring the Student Loan forgiveness allocation in September last year, this is the largest monthly budget deficit since July 2021. And it’s the second-largest February deficit ever.
Despite hitting the debt ceiling, the US Treasury managed to add $35 billion in new debt during January.
The Treasury has employed extraordinary measures, including exchanging Non-Marketable (e.g., Government employee retirement funds) and other forms of debt for short-term Bills. The balance on Bills grew by $241 billion which was the largest single-month growth since at least January 2021.
Over the last 18 months, the Treasury has aggressively converted short-term debt to longer-term debt. This can be seen in the chart below with the turquoise bars being negative.
The federal government ran a $220 billion deficit in August. It was the largest monthly deficit since last July.
The US government increased its total debt by $69 billion in June. The average interest rate on all of that debt is also going up, a growing problem for the borrow and spend government.
The Treasury Department continues to roll short-term Treasury Bills into longer-dated securities, allowing $148B in Bills to roll off the debt statement this month.
The Treasury increased the total debt by $125B in May after a brief drop in April. This brings the total debt increase so far in 2022 to $880B. More importantly, though, the cost to service the debt is exploding. Total annualized interest has increased by $40B or 13.5% since the start of the year!
The Treasury ran a budget deficit of $193B in the month of March. This exceeded the 12-month average of $144B.
Over the last year, the Treasury has seen a massive influx of Individual tax revenues that have helped support the ballooning Federal Deficit. Unfortunately, spending has been so high that the additional revenue did not give much reprieve, causing the Treasury to borrow $2.27T over the last 12 months.
The US Treasury added $111 billion in debt during March. Meanwhile, rising interest rates are already creating problems for Uncle Sam. Annualized interest on the US debt has increased by over $16 billion in just six months. Following is an analysis of US debt holdings.
In January, the US Treasury realized its first surplus in 2.5 years.
The surplus was short-lived.
The Treasury went in the red by $216.6 billion in February.
Debt issuance by the US Treasury has fallen since the binge in December when the Treasury had to replenish its “extraordinary measures” stockpiles (government employee retirement funds) after the end of the “debt ceiling” debate. Still, issuance remains relatively high.
The Treasury added another $278 billion in debt during February. Similar to January, the Treasury stopped converting short-term to long-term debt Instead, it increased Bills by $94 billion, more than any other security type.
