The U.S. government ran a budget surplus of 21 billion dollars in January, the best January showing in four years, the Treasury Department reported on Friday.

The department said the U.S. government spent 209 billion dollars last month, a record amount for January and up by 7.9 percent from January 2005. Government tax receipts also set a record high of 230 billion dollars, up by 13.7 percent from the same month of 2005.

The faster growth in receipts than in spending pushed the surplus for the month to 21 billion dollars, more than double the 8.6 billion dollars surplus the government recorded in January 2005. It was the biggest January surplus since 43.7 billion dollars in 2002.

For the first four months of the current budget year that began on October 1, 2005, the deficit of the U.S. government totals 98.3 billion dollars, an improvement of 10.2 percent from the same period of last fiscal year.

The Bush administration estimated on Monday that the deficit for this fiscal year will hit a record high of 423 billion dollars, surpassing the old record of 413 billion dollars set in 2004. The U.S. government deficit declined to 319 billion dollars in fiscal year of 2005.

Source: Xinhua