Treasury Department says U.S. government ran $98 billion deficit in July

In an official Daily Treasury Statement and Monthly Treasury Statement, the Treasury Department’s Financial Management Service (FMS) said that the United States federal government ran a deficit of $98 billion and increased from the month prior.

The FMS stated, however, that the national debt remains exactly at $16,699,396,000.00 for the entire month of July, which is $25 million below the legal debt limit legislated by Congress and passed into law by President Obama.

It was reported this past spring that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew issued a letter to House Speaker John Boehner noting that he would begin to implement a series of measures in order to refrain the government from surpassing the debt limit, such as using the civil service retirement and disability fund and a similar retirement fund for postal workers and end the selling of State and Local Government Series non-marketable securities until further notice.

What should be noted, though, is that the U.S. national debt on USDebtClock.org is shown as climbing ($16.9 trillion at the time of this writing) – it was reported Wednesday that if liabilities are taken into account then the real national debt figure is about $70 trillion.

The U.S. government mostly runs budget deficits in the month of July due to a paucity of tax deadlines and the usual summer slowdown. Nevertheless, analysts that were polled by Reuters had projected the deficit to be $96 billion.

Many are expecting the U.S. budget deficit to dip substantially in this fiscal year. For instance, in the past 10 months, the government has posted a $607 billion budget deficit, which is a lot lower than the $974 billion deficit run in the previous fiscal year. The reason, according to government officials, is higher tax rates, minor budget cuts and slight growth in the national economy.