(CNSNews.com) - The federal government set records for both the amount of taxes it collected and the amount of money it spent in the first four months of fiscal 2020 (October through January), according to data released today in the Monthly Treasury Statement.
So far in fiscal 2020, the federal government has collected $1,178,800,000,000 in total taxes.
The previous high for total federal taxes collected in the first four months of the fiscal year came in fiscal 2018, when the Treasury collected $1,172,088,080,000 in constant December 2019 dollars.
While the federal government was collecting that record $1,178,800,000 in federal taxes in October through January of this fiscal year, it was spending a record total of $1,567,985,000,000.
That was up $116,800,410,000 from the $1,451,184,590,000 (in constant December 2019 dollars) that the federal government spent in the first four months of fiscal 2019.
Before fiscal 2019, the record for federal spending in the first four months of the fiscal year had been set in fiscal 2009. That year in October through January, the federal government spent $1,423,253,530,000 (in constant December 2019 dollars). Part of the spending at the beginning of that fiscal year was driven by the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which President George W. Bush signed into law at the beginning of October 2008 to bail out insolvent banks.
In the first four months of this fiscal year—while collecting a record $1,178,800,000,000 and spending a record $1,567,985,000,000—the federal government ran a deficit of $389,185,000,000.
The Department of Health and Human Services led all federal agencies in spending in the first four months of fiscal 2020 with outlays of $443,759,000,000. The Social Security Administration was second with $380,623,000,000 in spending. The Defense Department and Military Programs was third with $237,702,000,000.
(The dollar figures in this story and in the charts were adjusted into constant December 2019 dollars using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.)