Surplus of $90 Billion in August 2023

See: https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2023-09/59474-MBR.pdf

The year-to-date deficit is $1.523 trillion.  

The only thing I really care about is net interest and defense spending.  Net Interest FYTD is $644 billion and last month was $572 billion, so that is $72 billion for the month, which is probably the highest it has ever been.  Defense spending FYTD is $692 billion and last month was $630 billion, so it was $62 billion for the month. So interest won again.  

Will defense ever spend more in a month than net interest?  It's not that I am trying to encourage defense spending, but the point is that interest is crowding out defense spending.  I previously thought  that wouldn't happen until 2029.  Now it looks like starting next fiscal year, which starts in October, that spending on interest will permanently exceed spending on defense.

There is usually a deficit in September, so the total 2023 deficit should be close to the prediction of $1.685 trillion.  We will know in about a month.

Update (9/20/23):  Here is another metric we should be watching: net interest as a percent of tax revenue. For August '23 the tax revenue was $284 billion.  So the net interest as a percent is 25.3%.  This is a huge problem, but lets see where it is for FY2022 as a whole - the numbers should be out in about a month.

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As of 8/31/23 the national debt was $32.914 trillion.  As of 8/31/22 it was $30.936 trillion.  It increased 6.4% in one year.