The federal budget deficit is projected to hit a record $3.3 trillion as huge government expenditures to fight the coronavirus and to prop up the economy have added more than $2 trillion to the federal ledger, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. The spike in the deficit means that federal debt will exceed annual gross domestic product next year, a milestone that would put the U.S. in the company of countries like Greece whose accumulated debt exceeds the size of their economies. The $3.3 trillion figure is more than triple the 2019 shortfall and more than double the levels experienced after the market meltdown and Great Recession of 2008-09. Government spending, fueled by four coronavirus response measures, would register at $6.6 trillion, $2 trillion-plus more than 2019. The economy shut down in the spring so people could be in isolation, in a failed national attempt to […]