Treasury River

About Treasury River

Each fiscal year of the U.S. federal budget, drawn as one river system. Receipts flow in as five tributaries and borrowing joins them in the reservoir. Everything spent passes the dam, then splits into eight channels that run to the sea. The lake to the side holds debt held by the public at the end of the year. This page shows figures and draws them; it adds no commentary.

Data

• Annual, FY1940–FY2025: OMB Historical Tables, FY2027 budget (tables 1.1, 2.1, 2.5, 3.1, 7.1, 10.1).
• Monthly, March 2015 onward: U.S. Treasury Monthly Treasury Statement, table 9.
• Both are works of the U.S. government and are in the public domain.

What the numbers are

• Actual results only. Budget estimates and projections are not used.
• Budget basis as published by OMB and Treasury, not the Treasury's daily cash flows. For example, loan programs are recorded at their estimated subsidy cost. On-budget and off-budget (Social Security, Postal Service) are combined.
• Borrowing = outlays − receipts. In a surplus year it reverses and is labelled "Surplus (paying down)".
• The lake is debt held by the public at fiscal year end (table 7.1). Its yearly change is close to, but not exactly, that year's deficit: other means of financing also move it.
• River width: share of GDP by default. "Real dollars" converts every year to FY2025 dollars with the GDP chained price index (table 10.1). Months have no GDP, so in the monthly view width is the month's amount in nominal dollars. A category that is negative in a month is drawn as a dry bed; its label shows the official value.
• Very thin flows are drawn at a minimum visible width.

Fiscal years

• Since FY1977 a fiscal year runs October 1 to September 30: FY2024 is October 2023 to September 2024.
• Through FY1976 it ran July 1 to June 30.
• The 1976 transition quarter (Jul–Sep 1976) is not shown. The lake's change from 1976 to 1977 includes its borrowing.

Categories

• Receipts: individual income taxes, social insurance and retirement receipts, corporation income taxes, customs duties (table 2.5), and other receipts = excise taxes + table 2.1 "Other" − customs duties.
• Outlays follow OMB budget functions: Social Security (650), Medicare (570), Health (550), Income security (600), Net interest (900), National defense (050), Veterans benefits and services (700). Everything else is all other functions plus undistributed offsetting receipts (950), which are negative.
• Monthly categories use the same function mapping.