Budget

Government Spent Took in Fiscal year 2017 $3,980 billion $2,740 billion Fiscal year 2018 $4,441 billion $2,760 billion The deficit is caused by spending too much not by not collecting enough. If you are wondering why the deficit for 2018 shows $1,681 billion but the government reported $779 billion deficit it is because of the way the government has been reporting things since 1990. Everyone assumes that the national debt is an accumulation of the annual deficit is mistaken. This is because some items like social security are considered off budget and not counted in the annual deficit but still counted in the overall debt.