The Congressional Budget Office found that the budget deficit surpassed $1.7 trillion for the fiscal year and $166 billion in September, according to a press release from bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. When accounting for the implementation and subsequent rollback of the President's intention to cancel student loans, the budget more than doubled from $0 in 2022 to $2 in 2023. Moreover, interest rates on U.S. Treasury securities have been swiftly growing, with the rate on a ten-year Treasury closing at 4.7 percent.
The following statement was issued on behalf of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget by its head, Maya MacGuineas:
"After declining in recent years due to the pandemic ending, the deficit is now back on the rise, totaling $1.7 trillion in 2023 and more than double last year's when you exclude the President's now overturned student debt cancellation and timing shifts. At a time when the economy is growing and unemployment remains near historic lows, this should have been a time to reduce deficits in order to help us better prepare to respond to future economic downturns or foreign crises."
MacGuineas addressed the various current issues and conflicts affecting the country and economy and how they should be influencing the economic decisions made by leaders.
"The first step is to ensure that we don't end the year with any kind of a borrowing binge, as we have seen in years past," MacGuineas said in the statement. "Also, we should establish a bipartisan commission to put our debt trajectory on a more sustainable path, an idea which has been gaining bipartisan traction in Congress and among thought leaders. We must change course. It will be tough, but we need to embrace the leadership and courage necessary to right our fiscal course."
