The federal budget deficit was an estimated $409 billion in October, the first month of fiscal year 2027, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday.
The monthly deficit was $125 billion larger than the deficit recorded in October 2025. Revenues were $36 billion lower, while outlays were $89 billion higher compared to last year. (Standardizing for the timing of weekends and holidays, the deficit would have been $95 billion larger, year over year.)
The budget hawks at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which advocates for smaller deficits, noted the increase in the shortfall. “We are just one month into the new fiscal year, and astonishingly we have already borrowed $409 billion,” the group’s leader, Maya MacGuineas, said in a statement. “These monthly numbers from CBO come on the heels of the end of a Fiscal Year that was plagued with unfortunate fiscal milestones including the gross national debt reaching a whopping $40 trillion, debt held by the public surpassing our entire economy, and interest exceeding defense spending.”
Ahead of the December 11 deadline to fund the government, MacGuineas called on Congress to avoid any new deficit spending. Looking beyond that immediate fiscal hurdle, she called on lawmakers to come up with a plan to cut federal deficits roughly in half, while finding ways to ensure that the Social Security and Medicare trust funds remain solvent in the long run.