The budget deficit exploded in 2018, according to the Treasury

WASHINGTON – The federal budget deficit reached $ 779 billion during the 2018 fiscal year, the Treasury Department announced Monday, mainly due to a sharp drop in revenue from the tax on companies after the entry into force of Trump tax cuts.

The deficit has risen nearly 17% from 2017, rising from $ 666 billion in 2017 to $ 1 trillion a year before the next presidential election, according to forecasts by the Trump administration and outside analysts . The deficit for the 2018 fiscal year, which ended September 30, was the largest since 2012, when the economy and federal revenues were still recovering from the trough of the recession.

Administration officials attributed the increase in the deficit to increased federal spending, including the increases in military and domestic spending approved this year by President Trump, and not the $ 1.5 trillion tax cut. dollars.

"President Trump has given priority to a major investment in the US military after years of cuts in military spending have undermined our preparedness and our national security," said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. in a statement. "In the future, the president's economic policies that spurred strong economic growth, combined with proposals to reduce unnecessary spending, will lead the United States toward a sustainable financial path."

However, figures released by Mnuchin's department suggest that the drop in revenue contributed much more to the rise in the deficit than to the rise in spending. Federal spending increased during the year, but as the economy grew faster than the previous year, their share of the economy went from 20.7% to 20.3% .

Federal revenues increased 0.2% from FY 2017. This was a slowdown from previous years. Revenues increased 1.5% between fiscal years 2016 and 2017. They increased by 0.5% between 2015 and 2016, when economic growth was considerably slower than last year. Between 2014 and 2015, they increased by 7.5%.

As a share of the economy, revenues fell to 16.5% for fiscal year 2018, up from 17.2% the year before. Revenues are now one percentage point lower than their average of the past 40 years, the Treasury Department said in its press release.

Personal income tax revenues increased slightly in the past year, according to Treasury data, although they were lower in September than in the previous year. The fall in revenues came from the corporate side. Corporate tax revenues decreased by a third compared to the same period last year, a direct result of the tax law signed last year, which brought the maximum corporate rate of 35%, bringing it to 21%.

The figures suggest that Trump's tariffs on metals imported from several countries and $ 250 billion worth of imports from China have not started to generate enough revenue to pay off the national debt, as Mr. Trump promised, although they generate more revenue than in previous years.