Feds Spent $142B on Thursday Alone—As Pols Dickered Over Cutting $33B or $40B for Rest of Year

April 8, 2011

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) at the White House on Wednesday, April 6, 2011. (AP photo/Charles Dharapak)

(CNSNews.com) - The federal government spent $142.3 billion on Thursday alone, according to the Daily Treasury Statement released at 4:00 pm on Friday afternoon.

This $142.3 billion in spending took place on a day when the White House and congressional leaders were deadlocked over whether to cut between $33 billion and $40 billion in federal spending for the rest of the year.

To fund the $142.3 billion it spent on Thursday, the U.S. Treasury borrowed $132.8 billion during the day by selling new debt instruments—and almost all of these ($129.9 billion) were short-term Treasury bills that mature in one year or less.

By far, the federal government’s top expense on Thursday was paying off old debts that came due and that the government had a legal obligation to meet. During the day, Treasury reports, it paid off $130.75 billion in Treasury securities that had matured.

The other biggest expenses for the government on Thursday included $1.7 billion in Medicaid benefits, $1.133 billion in payments to defense contractors, $1.101 billion in Medicare benefits, and $853 million in salaries for federal workers.

After the $132.8 billion in new Treasury securities the government sold on Thursday, the second largest source of federal revenue for the day was tax receipts, which totaled $2.154 billion.

Because the combined total of the new money it borrowed and the total tax revenue it received on Thursday did not cover the day’s expenses, the Treasury drew down its cash balance by $6.022 billion during the day. By the close of business Thursday, the Treasury was left with just $41.951 billion in cash, down from the $309.833 billion cash balance it maintained at the beginning of the fiscal year on Oct. 1, 2010.

The current legal limit on the national debt, as set in a statute passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama, is $14.294 trillion. By the close of business Thursday, the debt subject to this limit had reached $14.211999 trillion—leaving the Treasury the legal authority to increase the debt by only another $82 billion.

Last month, the Treasury predicted the national debt would hit the legal limit sometime between April 15 and May 31.