On Friday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its Monthly Budget Review (MBR) for November. With the first two months of the fiscal year behind us, CBO found that the government added $292 billion to the federal debt. Someone let Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and the rest of the recently converted budget hawks in Congress know they have more fuel for their doomsday fire.

According to the Monthly Treasury Statement for October and the Daily Treasury Statements for November, CBO tells us that the Treasury reported a deficit of $176 billion in October, or about $2 billion more than CBO projected based on earlier Daily Treasury Statements. The report goes on to state that outlays were $23 billion lower in November than during the same month last year. But then we learn that it's because November 1 fell on a weekend this year, and so $27 billion in payments that ordinarily would have been made in November were instead made at the end of October. We almost had some good news.

Anyways, CBO is estimating that the deficit in November was $115 billion, which is $10 billion less than the deficit in the same month last year. Of course, we'll probably get the same old excuse next month and find that the government is still spending like a drunken sailor. I'm just kidding, because without that spending we'd sure be in a lot bigger mess right now than we already find ourselves.

In the "tell me something I didn't already know" category, government receipts continued to dwindle in November. In fact, they were 13.7 percent lower than last year at this time. There is also a wonderful table for those of you interested in seeing where your money is currently going within the federal government:

Read the rest of the CBO report to soak up all the dismal estimates, budget totals, and receipts and outlays you can get your hands on.

First Image by Flickr user x-ray delta one used under a Creative Commons license.

Second Image by Flickr user johnsolid used under a Creative Commons license.