By Terence P. Jeffrey
| April 26, 2021 | 12:15am EDT
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) - Federal taxes, spending and the federal deficit all set records in the first six months of fiscal 2021 (October through March), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.
Federal taxes climbed to a record $1,703,949,000,000 in the October-through-March period, while federal spending climbed to $3,410,194,000,000.
The gap between the record federal tax collections and the record federal spending in the October-through-March period resulted in a record federal deficit of $1,706,245,000,000.
When the October-through-March deficit numbers for previous fiscal years are adjusted for inflation into constant March 2021 dollars (using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator), the second-highest deficit for the first six months of the fiscal year was in 2009. That year, the October-through-March deficit hit $1,191,458,980,000 in constant March 2021 dollars.