Each year’s deficit adds to the already enormous national debt, with interest costs driving further spending growth. The annual deficit is the product of numerous cash flows into and out of the Treasury that reflect past choices by lawmakers. Deviations in a single month might just be one-offs (like a payment for a large grant or settlement) or part of a predictable yearly pattern (for example, a large influx of tax revenue in April). But over the course of each fiscal year, other trends can emerge that reveal the state of the nation’s fiscal health: the relative strength of tax collections to the economy, the level of disaster response spending, or the effects of new legislation being implemented […]