Treasury to borrow $1 trillion for second straight year to finance deficit: report

The Treasury Department is projected to borrow $1 trillion for the second year in a row to finance the deficit, according to Bloomberg News.

Bloomberg reported the projection Monday ahead of a quarterly refunding announcement on Wednesday that is expected to show continued record-high levels of note and bond sales.

The projected total new issuance in fiscal 2019 is $1.4 trillion, according to Bloomberg, citing forecasts from a number of securities strategists.

{mosads}A Treasury Department announcement Monday said the U.S. government expects to borrow $365 billion in the January-March quarter, and another $83 billion in the next three-month period.

In fiscal 2018, President Trump’s first full year in office, the Treasury borrowed almost double the amount from the previous year, hitting $1 trillion for the first time.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Monday published its updated projection that the federal deficit will exceed $1 trillion in 2022. That projection delays by two years previous predictions for when the deficit would pass $1 trillion.

In fiscal 2019, the deficit is projected to reach $897 billion, a 15 percent jump from the previous year. The increase is largely driven by spending programs such as Social Security, and is pushed along by reduced revenues from the 2017 GOP tax cut.