WASHINGTON — The federal budget deficit rose to $150.4 billion last month, the largest November gap on record. And the government’s deficits are set to climb higher if Congress passes a tax-cut plan that’s estimated to cost more than $855 billion over two years.
The Treasury Department said November’s budget gap was 25 percent more than the deficit recorded in November 2009.
For the first two months of the current budget year, which began Oct. 1, the deficit totals $290.8 billion. That is 2 percent less than for the same period a year ago. And economists had been estimating that the full-year deficit would decline after two years of record highs.
But analysts say the tax deal President Barack Obama reached with Republicans this week will give the 2011 budget year the largest deficit in history — $1.5 trillion, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase.
It would mark the third straight year of trillion-dollar-plus deficits.
JPMorgan economist Michael Feroli said that under the tax-cut plan, he expects a $1.5 trillion deficit this fiscal year to be followed by a $1.2 trillion gap in 2012.
