Treasury: Federal deficit cut by $1.37T in 2022 fiscal year

Oct. 21 (UPI) -- The federal deficit tumbled by $1.37 trillion at the end of the latest fiscal year, the Treasury Department said Friday, helped by improving tax receipts totaling $4.9 trillion.

The federal government spent $6.3 trillion for the fiscal year, a decline of about 8.1% from the prior session. Part of the reduction was made possible by the drop in spending on items related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Under President Joe Biden, the budget declined by $2.776 trillion in the fiscal year 2021.

Biden called the deficit reduction "historic" Friday afternoon and despite continuing inflation concerns, claimed that the economy is moving in the right direction since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Our economy has recovered from all we lost in jobs during the pandemic," Biden said. "[The] 10 million jobs created [is] a record for any administration at this point in the presidency."

Biden said the administration's effort to make sure corporations pay taxes and cracking down on "millionaire tax cheats" are some of the drivers in the deficit reduction

The federal deficit mostly matched an earlier forecast by the Congressional Budget Office.

"[The report] provides further evidence of our historic economic recovery, driven by our vaccination effort and the American Rescue Plan," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, according to Market Watch.

While the budget deficit still remains large by historical standards, Biden blamed the current efforts to bring it down on former President Donald Trump and his administration.

"The federal deficit went up every single year in the Trump administration -- every single year he was president," Biden said, according to CNBC. "It went up before the pandemic. It went up during the pandemic. It went up every single year on his watch, Republican's watch."