Economics
Visualizing U.S. Budget Gap That Scares Everyone Except Markets
Copies of the fiscal year 2020 budget sit on a conveyor belt inside the Government Publishing Office in Washington, D.C., U.S., on March 7.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The expanding U.S. budget deficit is putting federal debt on course for levels last seen during the World War II era, a shift that may test the bond market’s willingness to keep funding the government at relatively low costs.
Total federal debt held by the public rose to $16 trillion in 2018, or 78 percent of gross domestic product, and in coming years is expected to surpass the record 106 percent reached in 1946 in the aftermath of mass spending to fund the war, according to the Congressional Budget Office.