The federal deficit will surpass $1 trillion by 2020, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported Monday.
The deficit is growing at a faster rate than previously estimated, the CBO added, spurred on by recent legislative decisions including the Republican tax bill passed in December and last month's approval of increased military spending, which together will add $1.6 trillion to deficits in the next decade.
Federal debt will reach $804 billion by the end of the fiscal year in 2018, estimates showed. The last CBO report, published in June, projected that deficits wouldn't top $1 trillion until 2022, but increased federal spending and cuts to government revenue streams have bumped the estimate up two years.
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The report did find, however, that economic growth is steady and unemployment is low. Moreover, the nation's GDP is set to increase by 3.3 percent in 2018, making good on Republican promises to spark growth in the economy.
Even so, deficits in the next decade are poised to be at their highest levels since World War II — with the exception of 2008 and 2009, when the country was in a recession. Read more at Bloomberg.
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