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March 12, 2008

Fed Sets New Monthly Deficit Record

Now here is something to not be proud of: Aided by tumbling tax receipts in a weakening economy, the U.S. government just set an all-time record for its monthly deficit:

The U.S. government turned in a $175.56 billion budget deficit for February, a record for any month, as federal spending grew but a slowing economy caused receipts to fall 12.1 percent from a year earlier, the U.S. Treasury said on Wednesday.

The February deficit soundly beat the previous all-time single-month deficit of $119.99 billion in February 2007 and also exceeded Wall Street economists' consensus estimate of a $160.0 billion deficit in a Reuters poll.

For those of you keeping score at home, that is a $56-billion beat of the record in February, or about $1.9-billion in surplus (all puns intended) deficit per day.

[via Reuters]

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