Washington, – The federal government registered a surplus of 8.7 billion dollars last January, a figure well below the 49.2 billion dollars that it accumulated in the same month of 2018, the Treasury Department reported today.
However, in the first four months of the fiscal year, which begins on October 1, the budget deficit reaches 310,300 million dollars, 77% more than in the same period last year, when the gap in federal accounts added 175,700 million dollars, added official information.
The figures were released late due to the closure of the Government Administration that began on December 22 and lasted for five weeks, the longest in the history of the country.
On January 28, the Office of the Budget of Congress (CBO) revealed that the partial administrative closure of the federal government, which began in the wake of the dispute between Democrats and Republicans for resources for the construction of the wall on the border with Mexico , implied a non-recoverable cost of 3,000 million dollars to the national economy.
According to the CBO, nonpartisan organ of the Congress, the economy of the country lost a total of 11,000 million dollars during the partial suspension of the federal Administration.
The administrative shutdown ended after President Donald Trump agreed to approve a three-week budget extension that did not include funds for his controversial promise of a wall on the Mexican border.
Trump decreed on February 15 the state of national emergency for a supposed “invasion” of drugs and criminals on the border with Mexico after the Congress denied him his budgetary pretensions for the construction of the wall.
The CBO estimates indicate that the national budget will have a deficit in 2019 of 897,000 million dollars. (EFEUSA)
