For a long time, people rightly accused Obama of having the worst deficit spending to date. This was a true statement. However, Trump has now take Obama’s place, with the worst deficit spending yet in American history:
The federal government spent a record $3,727,014,000,000 in the first ten months of fiscal 2019 (October through July), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.
While spending that record $3,727,014,000,000, the government ran a deficit of $866,812,000,000.
Before this year, the most that the federal government had ever spent in the first ten months of a fiscal year was in fiscal 2009, when the Treasury spent $3,576,745,930,000 (in constant June 2019 dollars, adjusted using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator).
Federal spending was impacted in fiscal 2009 by the recession that was ongoing when that fiscal year began. At the beginning of fiscal 2009, President George W. Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program to bailout failing banks. Later that fiscal year, President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aimed at stimulating the economy.
Total federal revenues in the first ten months of fiscal 2019 equaled $2,860,202,000,000. That was less than the total revenues the federal government collected in the first ten months of fiscal 2017 ($2,866,978,570,000 in constant June 2019 dollars) and fiscal 2015 ($2,868,253,370,000 in constant June 2019 dollars).
Federal individual income tax revenues in the first ten months of fiscal 2019 equaled $1,428,904,000,000. That was less than the individual income taxes the federal government collected ($1,438,381,490,000 in constant June 2019 dollars) in the first ten months of fiscal 2018.
The difference between the $2,860,202,000,000 in total taxes the government collected and the $3,727,014,000,000 that it spent in the October through July period resulted in a deficit of $866,812,000,000.
According to Table 3 in the Monthly Treasury Statement, the Department of Health and Human Services spent the most of any federal agency in the first ten months of fiscal 2019 ($1,005,897,000,000), the Social Security Administration spent the second most ($915,775,000,000), and the Department of Defense-Military Programs spent the third most ($540,435,000,000). (source, source)