Treasury General Account

The Treasury General Account (TGA) is an account maintained by the United States Department of the Treasury at the Federal Reserve.^[1] It receives tax payments and proceeds from the auction of Treasury securities, and disburses government payments to individuals and businesses.^[2] Aside from its cash flow duties, it is also held to protect the Treasury from running out of money if Congress delays raising the debt ceiling.^[3] The TGA is often described as the government's "checking account".^[4][5][6] As of 3 January 2025^[update], the balance of the account is US$677 billion.^[7]

Because funds in the TGA count as reserves in the central banking system, under the Fed's former limited-reserves regime the balance of the TGA was kept low so as not to influence the federal funds rate. The target balance was US$5 billion; the rest of the government's cash balance was kept at private depository institutions in the Treasury Tax and Loan Note (TT&L) program. Funds were transferred to and from the TT&L accounts daily to meet the TGA target.^[1]

Starting after the 2008 financial crisis, the Treasury began keeping almost all of its cash balance in the TGA, as quantitative easing greatly increased the amount of reserves, so a large TGA balance would no longer have an outsized effect on the system. Also, interest on excess reserves was an economic incentive to keep money in the TGA.^[1]

The balance of the TGA increased to US$1.6 trillion in 2021 as a result of increased government borrowing during the COVID-19 pandemic.^[4][2] During the 2023 debt-ceiling crisis, the account's balance fell as low as US$50 billion, compared to a target of US$600 billion.^[8]

• Tymoigne, Éric (2014). "Modern Money Theory and interrelations between the treasury and the central bank: The case of the United States". Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.

• Historical balance of the account from FRED