The Treasury Department reported Monday that the federal deficit in June was a record-setting $846 billion due in large part to the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
For comparison, the budget deficit in June 2019 was $8.4 billion.
Regarding last month, total spending was more than $1.1 trillion, while receipts only amounted to $241 billion. The federal government is currently on target to run a $2.7 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2020, which ends in September.
The chief reason for all the red ink is the federal response to the coronavirus. To date, policymakers have authorized an estimated $3.6 trillion in federal spending, according to the Peterson Foundation.
However, that amount will likely increase as Congress is expected to approve another coronavirus relief bill, provided that the two chambers agree on a package.
The House acted on additional relief legislation by approving the HEROS Act in May. The bill was projected to cost $3.4 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which is Congress’s official bookkeeper.
Senate Republicans flatly rejected the House bill and said they plan to take up a measure that is a fraction of the cost, under $1 trillion, and targets the needs most closely related to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Liability reform, kids in school, jobs, and healthcare,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said during a visit to a food pantry in Louisville, Kentucky, last week, the Associated Press reported. “That’s where the focus, it seems to me, ought to be.”
McConnell has pledged that he won’t take up any new aid package in the Senate unless it includes lawsuit liability reform for businesses, healthcare facilities, and schools. Protection from lawsuits, he argues, is necessary to help reopen the economy and banish the threat of getting sued because of the coronavirus.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said that her party would not support creating liability protections for businesses in the next relief bill.
This issue will likely have to be worked out before another relief bill passes Congress.
