The U.S. budget deficit for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, 2006, would total 371 billion dollars, up from an earlier estimate of 337 billion dollars, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted Friday.

In its analysis of President George W. Bush's budget, the CBO said that the 371-billion-dollar shortfall would account for 2.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), compared with the deficit of 318 billion dollars in 2005 which was 2.6 percent of the GDP.

The CBO-predicted deficit of 371 billion was 52 billion dollars less than the record 423 billion dollars forecast last month by the Office of Management and Budget, the White House budget agency.

The likely increase in deficit for the current year was attributed mainly to additional funds requested by the Bush administration for the U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the CBO, Congress's nonpartisan budget analyst.

In 2007, the deficit would total 335 billion dollars, CBO forecast.

However, the amount that Bush had requested to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for that year -- only 50 billion dollars -- might not be sufficient, it said.

"If the pace of those operations continued at about this year's level, the deficit in 2007 would be in the vicinity of 355 billion dollars, or 2.6 percent of GDP," the CBO said.

The Bush administration has predicted a much higher budget deficit of 439 billion dollars for the fiscal year of 2007. That would set a new all-time high, surpassing the old record of 412 billion hit in 2004.

It was reported that Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate thought the prediction was artificially high.

Source: Xinhua