The White House has increased the amount of the expected budget deficit for fiscal year 2009 by an additional $90 billion. The budget director explained that greater-than-expected deficit on his blog:
The change in the deficit estimates reflects upward technical revisions in light of new information regarding the collection of receipts, financial stabilization efforts, and other federal programs. (Technical revisions reflect additional data on, or expected changes in, government receipts or expenditures, other than because of changed assumptions about major macroeconomic variables such as the size of the economy, the rate of inflation, or the unemployment rate. The latter are called economic revisions.) Treasury now estimates that overall federal revenue will be less than was projected in February by between $30 billion and $50 billion in each of this year and next. We also have more information about the severity of the financial crisis facing the nation, and this is reflected in new, higher estimates for the cost of financial stabilization efforts undertaken through TARP and by the FDIC.
