What’s happening: The Congressional Budget Office projected Wednesday that the federal debt could be bigger than the US gross domestic product for the fiscal year starting in October. It hasn’t passed that threshold since 1946.
The CBO also projected that the federal budget deficit will hit $3.3 trillion this year, more than triple the shortfall recorded in 2019. That would be the largest deficit as a percentage of GDP since 1945.
The backstory: The increase is mostly caused by the economic fallout from the pandemic, which is shrinking GDP as Congress spends trillions of dollars to help keep the economy … Read more