Federal Budget, Cbo | featured news

The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion budget deficit in fiscal 2011, the same as the previous fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office said.

The federal deficit will hit $1.3 trillion for fiscal 2011, the third consecutive year of record shortfalls and an emerging campaign theme for GOP attacks on President Obama and congressional Democrats. The deficits of the last three years are at levels unseen since World War II and stem from the "long shadow" cast on the economy by the financial crisis and recession, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

In its mid-year long-term budget forecast, the Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday renewed its previous warnings that the government faces an increasing risk of a fiscal crisis due its ever-greater borrowing.