Site Map  enter code:

Spending Analyses:

Debt, Deficit Analyses:

Numbers — Charts:

 

    Contact    

Budget of the United States Government

Definition: Every year in February the President of the United States is required to send to Congress a budget request for the fiscal year that begins the following October.

full screen

FY12 Federal Budget   also: Revenue Budget  

Recent and budgeted headline federal budget numbers in the FY12 Budget including overall spending, deficit, and debt.

$ trillion nom
2010201120122013201420152016
  Spending3.53.83.73.84.04.24.5 
  Federal Deficit1.31.61.10.80.60.60.6 
  Other Borrowing0.40.30.10.30.40.40.4 
  Gross Federal Debt13.515.516.717.818.819.820.8 
source: actual budgeted estimated

Click for Budget Detail

FY12 Federal Budget: Spending by Function

Recent and budgeted federal spending in the FY12 Budget
for major federal spending functions.

$ trillion nom
201020112012
  Pensions0.70.80.8 
  Health Care0.80.90.9 
  Education0.10.10.1 
  Defense0.81.00.9 
  Welfare0.50.50.4 
source: actual budgeted

Click for Budget Detail

Notes

Data Sources: Federal Spending from Budget of the United States Government.

For a discussion of the sources of the government spending data used here read How We Got the Data for usgovernmentspending.com.

Budget Updates: The president’s budget is typically published each year in February.

Other budgets:
FY86 FY87 FY88 FY89 FY90 FY91 FY92 FY93 FY94 FY95 FY96 FY97 FY98 FY99 FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY10 FY11 FY12 FY13 FY14 FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18 FY19 FY20 FY21 FY22 FY23 FY24 FY25

Federal Budget in History

in dollars

in percent GDP

1863 - Gross federal debt exceeded $1 billion for first time.

1865 - Federal spending exceeded $1 billion for first time.

1914 - Federal spending exceeded $1 billion for second time.

1918 - Gross federal debt exceeded $10 billion for first time.

1921 - Bureau of the Budget established by Budget and Accounting Act.

1943 - Gross federal debt exceeded $100 billion for first time.

1970 - Office of Management and Budget created.

1982 - Gross federal debt exceeded $1 trillion for first time.

1987 - Federal spending exceeded $1 trillion for first time.

2009 - Gross federal debt exceeded $10 trillion for first time.

1792 - Federal debt at 35 percent GDP.

1795 - Federal spending at two percent GDP.

1854 - Federal debt at one percent GDP.

1865 - Federal spending at 13 percent GDP at height of Civil War.

1867 - Federal debt at 32 percent GDP after Civil War.

1907 - Federal spending at 2.2 percent GDP.

1913 - Federal debt at 7.5 percent GDP.

1919 - Federal spending at 24 percent GDP at height of World War I.

1919 - Federal debt at 35 percent GDP after World War I.

1929 - Federal spending at 3.7 percent GDP.

1929 - Federal debt at 16 percent GDP.

1945 - Federal spending at 48 percent GDP at height of World War II.

1946 - Federal debt at 122 percent GDP after World War II.

1951 - Federal spending at 14.4 percent GDP.

1981 - Federal debt at 32 percent GDP.

1982 - Federal spending at 23 percent GDP.

1995 - Federal debt at 66 percent GDP.

2000 - Federal spending at 18 percent GDP.

2009 - Federal spending at 24 percent GDP.

2011 - Federal debt at 97 percent GDP.

Federal Budget Process

This Budget of the United States Government starts the annual “budget process” that ends when Congress passes and the president signs the annual appropriations bills or continuing resolutions to fund the federal government for another fiscal year.

On this page you can see headline numbers for budgeted spending (or “outlays”), deficits, and also for major spending functions. Click here for details of outlays by function for the next five years. Click here for budget authority by function for the next five years. Click here for Social Security. Click here for Medicare.

Source: Budget of the United States Government.

Suggested Video: US Defense Spending

Top Spending Requests:

Find DEFICIT stats and history.

Get WELFARE stats and history.

US BUDGET overview and pie chart.

Find NATIONAL DEBT today.

DOWNLOAD spending data or debt data.

See FEDERAL BUDGET breakdown and estimated vs. actual.

MILITARY SPENDING details, budget and history.

ENTITLEMENT SPENDING history.

See BAR CHARTS of spending, debt.

Check STATE spending: CA NY TX FL and compare.

See SPENDING ANALYSIS briefing.

See SPENDING HISTORY briefing.

Take a COURSE at Spending 101.

Make your own CUSTOM CHART.

Spending Data Sources

Spending data is from official government sources.

Gross Domestic Product data comes from US Bureau of Economic Analysis and measuringworth.com.

Detailed table of spending data sources here.
Medicare breakdown here; Medicaid breakdown here.

Federal spending data begins in 1792.

State and local spending data begins in 1820.

State and local spending data for individual states begins in 1957.

Gross Federal Debt

Debt Now:  $37,889,756,572,760.44
Debt 2/2020:$23,409,959,150,243.63

Site Search

Win Cash for Bugs

File a valid bug report and get a $5 Amazon Gift Certificate.

Get the Books


Price: $0.99
Or download
for free.

From
usgovernment
spending.com
Price: $1.99

Life after liberalism Price: $0.99
Or download
for free.

US Government Spending 2020: only 99¢.

US Government Spending 2012: free.

Data Sources for 2009_2016:

Sources for 2009:

GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances

Sources for 2016:

GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances
'Guesstimated' by projecting the latest change in reported spending forward to future years

> data sources for other years
> data update schedule.

Blog

Federal Deficit, Receipts, Outlays Actuals for FY 2025

On October 16, 2025, the US Treasury reported in its Monthly Treasury Statement (and xlsx) for September that the federal deficit for FY 2025 ending September 30, 2025, was $1,775 billion. Here are the numbers, including total receipts, total outlays, and deficit compared with the numbers projected in the FY 2025 federal budget published in February 2024:

Federal Finances
FY 2025 Outcomes
Budget
billions
Outcome
billions
Receipts $5,485$5,235
Outlays$7,226$7,010
Deficit$1,781$1,775

We use the spending projections from the FY 2025 budget because the Federal government did not publish spending projections in its Budget for Fiscal Year 2026 as originally published in May 2025.

The Monthly Treasury Statement includes "Table 4: Receipts of the United States Government, September 2025 and Other Periods." This table of receipts by source is used for usgovernmentspending.com to post details of federal receipt actuals for FY 2025. usdgovernmentspending.com obtains the data for outlays and receipts from apis at fiscaldata.treasury.gov.

This MTS report on FY 2025 actuals is a problem for usgovernmentspending.com because this site uses Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction from the Budget of the United States as its basic source for federal subfunction outlays. But the Monthly Treasury Statement only includes "Table 9. Summary of Receipts by Source, and Outlays by Function of the U.S. Government, September 2025 and Other Periods". Subfunction amounts don't get reported until the FY27 budget in February 2026. Until then usgovernmentspending.com estimates actual outlays by "subfunction" for FY 2025 by factoring subfunction budgeted amounts for FY25 by the ratio between relevant actual and budgeted "function" amounts where actual outlays by subfunction cannot be gleaned from the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Final detailed FY 2025 actuals will not appear on usgovernmentspending.com until the FY 2027 federal budget is published in February 2026 with the actual outlays for FY 2025 in Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction.
State and Local Finances for 2023
On September 11, 2025 we updated the state and local spending and revenue for FY 2023 using the new Census Bureau  ...

State Spending for 2023
In March 2025 the US Census Bureau released data on state finances for FY 2023 here and  ...

> blog

Spend Links

us numbersus budgetcustom chartdeficit/gdpspend/gdpdebt/gdpus gdpus real gdpstate gdpbreakdownfederalstatelocal202420252026californiatexas

Masthead

usgovernmentspending.com was designed and executed by:

Christopher Chantrill.

Email here.


presented by Christopher Chantrill

Data Sources  •   •  Contact