Monthly budget review
CBO released a new monthly budget review today. During the first seven months of fiscal year 2008, CBO estimates that the federal government ran a deficit of $151 billion — $70 billion more than during the same period in 2007. Outlays are roughly 7 percent higher than last year, whereas revenue is up by only about 3 percent. (Corporate income tax revenue is down by more than 13 percent.)
Receipts from tax returns filed by the April 15 deadline were about 6 percent higher than such receipts last year, about what CBO anticipated when it prepared its most recent budget projections in March.