The USA’s federal deficit for 2009 fiscal year reached a record high of US$1.42T, the Treasury Department announced last Friday.
The US government imbalance for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2009, more than tripled last year’s record. As a portion of the economy, the deficit accounted for about 10%, the highest since World War II. For fiscal year 2009, the government collected US$2.1T in revenues, a 16.6 % drop from Y 2008, while government spending jumped to US$3.52T up 18.2% over Y 2008. The Treasury Department projected that the deficits would total US$9.1T over the next decade unless corrective action is taken. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner pointed to the rising federal debt as a result of the government’s actions to tackle the worst economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Obama Administration launched a US$787B stimulus bill to boost the economy and another US$700B to stabilize the financial system since the beginning of the year. Besides, Geithner said, the debt was also a heritage of the George W. Bush period, and that the 2009 deficit was largely the product of the spending and tax policies inherited from the previous Administration, according to the department
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