Federal government runs a $98 billion deficit in July

The federal government ran a nearly $98 billion budget deficit in July, the U.S. Treasury Department reported Tuesday. Spending totaled $298 billion while tax receipts came in at $200 billion.

July’s deficit follows a $116.5 billion surplus in June. The July deficit is also substantially higher than the nearly $70 billion deficit the government ran in the year-ago period.

But year to date through July 2013, with two months remaining in the fiscal year, the United States has run a $607 billion budget deficit. In the entire 2012 fiscal year, the U.S. posted a nearly $1.1 trillion deficit, including a $974 billion deficit through the first 10 months of the fiscal year. That’s about 37 percent higher than this year’s gap between government spending and revenue.

Tax receipts so far this fiscal year are up 14 percent to nearly $2.3 trillion while spending is down about 3 percent to almost $2.9 trillion compared to the previous year, according to the Treasury Department data.

Taxes on the wealthy increased at the start of 2013 and a 2 percent payroll tax cut on all workers expired at the same time. Meanwhile, the budget sequester has put a lid on spending, at least temporarily.