US federal government to borrow $444bn in second half

The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday announced that the federal government expected to borrow 444 billion U.S. dollars from the market to fund its operation in the second half of this year. The department said in a statement that it expected to issue 209 billion dollars in net marketable debt from July to September, assuming a cash balance of 95 billion dolars by the end of the quarter. In the fourth quarter, the department would issue 235 billion dollars in net marketable debt, expecting a cash balance of 80 billion dollars by the end of December. In the April-June quarter, the Treasury Department paid down 11 billion dollars in net marketable debt, ending with 135 billion dollars of cash balance. In order to finance government operations, the Treasury Department chose to issue net marketable debt, including bills, notes and bonds, and such issuances have increased dramatically over the past years due to the financial crisis and economic recession. The U.S. budget deficit topped around 1.1 trillion dollars in the 2012 fiscal year ending in September, the fourth consecutive fiscal year that surpassed 1 trillion dollars despite that it was about 207 billion dollars less than the previous fiscal year. The federal government ran a record budget deficit of 1.41 trillion dollars in the 2009 fiscal year and a 1.29-trillion-dollar imbalance in the 2010 fiscal year.