End-of-FY Budget Data Starts Trickling In
The federal fiscal year 2025 ended on September 30, and even though the federal government has been in a “shutdown” for the 17 days since then, enough federal workers have been on the job to produce the Monthly Treasury Statement for September 2025, which came out yesterday.
Big picture. The federal deficit was $1.775 trillion in fiscal 2025. This is down ever so slightly from fiscal 2024’s $1.817 trillion, but the 2025 deficit was still 97.7 percent as large as the prior year, so this can’t be described as significant progress.
Receipts from customs duties were $118 billion higher than the prior year thanks to Trump Administration tariffs of questionable legality, and spending on the Department of Education dropped by $233 billion because changes in student loan cancelation policies put the entire lifetime change in loan value on book in the year the policy change is made. But interest on the national debt increased by $83 billion over last year, and HHS spending went up by $164 billion because Medicare/Medicaid.
As a result, 2025’s total outlays were $275 billion higher than 2024, whereas total government receipts for 2025 were $317 million higher than last year.
Unfortunately, we seem to have stabilized at a nominal deficit level that is around twice what the pre-COVID deficit level was.
| Billion $ | |
| FY16 | 586 |
| FY17 | 666 |
| FY18 | 779 |
| FY19 | 984 |
| FY20 | 3,132 |
| FY21 | 2,772 |
| FY22 | 1,375 |
| FY23 | 1,695 |
| FY24 | 1,817 |
| FY25 | 1,775 |
Department of Transportation. The U.S. Department of Transportation spent $127.6 billion in 2025, an 8.7 percent increase (+$10.2 billion) over the previous year.
(Perspective: the federal deficit was 13.9 times greater than total USDOT spending in 2025.)
The following table shows all the USDOT outlay data that is recorded in the MTS for the last four fiscal years. It allows us to see the effect that the massive spending increases provided in the IIJA infrastructure law at the start of fiscal 2022 have had now that grant recipients have had time to actually spend some of their money.
(The outliers are “Other Programs” at the Federal Transit Administration, “AIP (AATF)” at the Federal Aviation Administration, and “Other GF Programs” at the Federal Highway Administration, because that’s where the COVID aid was, and that was particularly slow-spending at FTA.)
| U.S. Department of Transportation Outlays (Million $$) | |||||
| FY 2022 | FY 2023 | FY 2024 | FY 2025 | ||
| Office of the Secretary | 2,324 | 2,230 | 3,125 | 2,742 | |
| Federal Aviation Admin. | |||||
| Operations | 11,361 | 11,915 | 12,620 | 13,733 | |
| Facilities & Equipment | 3,054 | 3,082 | 3,086 | 3,200 | |
| Research, Engin. & Develop. | 197 | 222 | 235 | 225 | |
| AIP (AATF) | 5,743 | 4,496 | 4,069 | 3,741 | |
| Other GF Programs | 2,715 | 4,109 | 3,087 | 3,907 | |
| Subtotal, FAA | 23,070 | 23,824 | 23,097 | 24,806 | |
| Federal Highway Admin. | |||||
| Federal-Aid Highways | 44,131 | 48,088 | 53,666 | 56,025 | |
| Other GF Programs | 6,008 | 5,930 | 7,457 | 9,007 | |
| Subtotal, FHWA | 50,139 | 54,018 | 61,123 | 65,033 | |
| Federal Motor Carrier Safety Admin. | 703 | 862 | 892 | 1,006 | |
| Nat. Highway Traffic Safety Admin. | 1,113 | 1,250 | 1,378 | 1,486 | |
| Federal Railroad Admin. | 2,760 | 3,751 | 3,875 | 6,491 | |
| Federal Transit Admin. | |||||
| Transit Formula Grants | 7,206 | 9,965 | 13,686 | 16,234 | |
| Capital Investment Grants | 1,695 | 2,337 | 2,553 | 2,598 | |
| Other Programs | 25,175 | 11,295 | 7,176 | 6,513 | |
| Subtotal, FTA | 34,076 | 23,597 | 23,415 | 25,347 | |
| Maritime Administration | 739 | 1,049 | 1,022 | 993 | |
| PHMSA/Seaway/OIG | 335 | 374 | 463 | 545 | |
| Proprietary Receipts from the Public | -1,363 | -1,012 | -809 | -675 | |
| PHMSA Pipeline Safety Fees | -156 | -153 | -190 | -183 | |
| Other Transactions | -12 | -3 | -2 | -9 | |
| NET TOTAL OUTLAYS, USDOT | 113,728 | 109,787 | 117,389 | 127,583 | |
Highway Trust Fund. We won’t have details until later, but the MTS did have a few totals for the beleaguered Highway Trust Fund.
- Total net user tax receipts were up by $1.8 billion, from $42.5 billion in FY24 to $44.3 billion in FY25.
- Total outlays increased by at least $5 billion over FY24. (We don’t know precisely how much because the MTS mixes NHTSA outlays from the HTF with those from the General Fund so NHTSA is not included in that total.)
- Interest earned on HTF balances is down from $6.1 billion in FY24 to $3.9 billion in FY25.
