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A view from the US Treasury Department building in Washington DC, the United States, on December 30, 2024. The US Treasury Department was cyberattacked by a Chinese state-sponsored actor in early December .
Celal Gunes | Anadolu | fake images
The federal budget plunged further into the red during December, leaving the fiscal first quarter deficit nearly 40% higher than a year earlier.
For the last calendar month of 2024, the deficit amounted to $86.7 billion, which was actually a 33% decrease from the same period a year earlier, according to a Treasury Department report on Tuesday. However, that brought the three-month fiscal year total to $710.9 billion, up about $200 billion from the comparable period a year earlier, or 39.4%.
Rising financing costs, along with continued spending growth and declining tax revenues, have combined to skyrocket deficits, pushing the national debt to more than $36 trillion.
Although short-term Treasury yields have remained fairly stable over the past month, rates at the far end of the duration curve have spiked. The benchmark 10-year bond most recently returned about 4.8%, or about 0.4 percentage points higher than it was a month ago.
At the same time, disbursements during the first quarter were 11% higher than a year ago, while revenue fell 2%.
Interest on the national debt amounted to $308.4 billion in fiscal year 2025, up 7% from a year ago. Financing costs are projected to exceed $1.2 trillion for the full year, which would surpass the 2024 record.
This year the government has spent more on interest payments than any other category except Social Security, defense and health care.
