The latest budget deficit report from the Treasury Department held more red ink for Uncle Sam, as the feds reported budget gap of $33 billion in the month of January, pushing the deficit for first four months of Fiscal Year 2020 to $389 billion, $79 billion more than the same point a year ago.
January is often a rare month in the black for the federal government, as a year ago Uncle Sam ran a budget surplus of $8.7 billion - but in 2020, that swung the other way.
The new deficit figures were issued a day after the chairman of the Federal Reserve called for a 'more sustainable' federal budget, telling the Congress that $1 trillion deficits are unacceptable.
The latest budget plan from the White House issued on Monday does not envision a balanced U.S. federal budget for 15 years.
The last time the feds ran a surplus was at the end of the Clinton Administration in the late 1990's.
The report showed the federal government raised nearly $7 billion in import duties in January, as the President's higher tariffs on imported goods continues to be felt by certain U.S. companies.
In the first four months of the fiscal year, the government has brought in $28 billion in tariffs - an average of $7 billion a month for the entire year would total out to just under $100 billion.
Collections of tariffs are up $3.6 billion from the same point a year ago - an average of $900 million per month.
For comparison, when President Trump took office three years ago in January of 2017, the feds were collecting $3 billion per month in tariffs.
That figure has now more than doubled to an average of $7 billion.
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