U.S. government budget ends fiscal year with a more than $3 trillion deficit

Efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic left the U.S. government submerged in red ink as its fiscal year came to a close.

The final tally for the budget deficit in fiscal 2020 came to $3.13 trillion, more than triple last year’s shortfall of $984 billion and double the previous record of $1.4 trillion in 2009, courtesy of a stimulus package passed that year to battle the financial crisis.

Most of the damage to this year’s budget came due to the CARES Act, a $2.2 trillion spending package that included extra...