From New York Times, I'm Michael Bobaro. This is the Daily.

On Friday, the U.S. government reported that over the past year, the federal deficit, the gap between what the US spent and what it earned, doubled to nearly $2 trillion.

That figure seems to validate the worries of

congressional Republicans about government spending, which have been at the center of

the messy fight over who should be House Speaker. But as my colleague

Jim Tankersley explains, the Republicans' plans won't come close to solving the problem.

It's Monday, October 23rd. So Jim, two trillion dollars, we now know is our deficit for just the last year and I'm not an economist that seems like a

huge number and I'd like you to put that into perspective.

It's a big deficit it's twice the size of the deficit last year. So a big jump.

It's only the third time in American history when we've had a $2 trillion deficit and the first two were in the depths of the pandemic.

And we're in a really different economic place than we were.

Those last $2 trillion deficits were not just reopening from the pandemic, we're back. And usually when an economy is growing rapidly

like our economy has been over the last year, deficits go down, but this one did not.

Now, Jim, deficits are always a tricky subject.

Republicans talk about it now all the time.

In fact, they have put it at the center of this chaotic speakership fight that they're now having.

Yet, you have trained us through many long conversations to understand that deficits aren't necessarily

that big of a deal. So how much should we really care about this $2 trillion number?

I think we should care a lot.

And people I know, smart people who I talk to for my stories

who have for a long time said,

don't worry about deficits deficits don't worry too much

...