Bessent Touts Drop in Deficit-to-GDP Ratio, Sees Tax-Refund Wave

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent touted a drop in a key US fiscal ratio as evidence that President Donald Trump’s economic policies are working without causing a recession.

“The deficit-to-GDP now has a five in front of it,” Bessent said at a community bank conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Thursday. That’s down from a 2024 ratio “which was the highest when we weren’t at war or weren’t in a recession in US history.”

He spoke a day after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office published its estimate for September federal government spending and revenue figures, along with the full 2025 ...