When it comes to the size of the federal government’s annual deficit, appearances can be deceiving.
- A projection by the Congressional Budget Office claimed the gap between spending and revenue for fiscal year 2023 was $1.7 trillion.
- The gap was actually much larger. That is because of the odd way President Biden’s attempt to broadly cancel student debt shows up in budget figures.
Without the student-debt-cancellation proposal muddling the numbers, the deficit for fiscal year 2022 would have been smaller than originally reported, around $1 trillion. And the gap for fiscal 2023 would be bigger, about $2 trillion.