U.S. federal deficit falls to lowest level in 4 years

The U.S. federal deficit totaled 80.4 billion dollars in the first three months of the current fiscal year, the smallest shortfall for the first three months of budget year since 2002, the Treasury Department reported on Friday.

The 80.4-billion-dollar deficit was down 32.6 percent from the red ink for the same period a year ago of 119.4 billion dollars.

The improvement came as federal revenues posted a surge in the first three months of the current fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, 2006.

In its monthly budget report, the Treasury said that government revenues totaled 573.5 billion dollars from October through December, up 8.2 percent over the same period a year ago. Government spending was up 0.7 percent to 653.9 billion dollars from a year earlier.

For December, the government ran a surplus of 44.5 billion dollars, the largest ever for that month.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the budget deficit for the current budget year will rise to 286 billion dollars, up 15.2 percent from last year. The Bush administration, however, predicts the deficit for 2007 year to be 339.2 billion dollars.

U.S. federal budget deficit hit an all-time high of 413 billion dollars in 2004. Last week, President Bush said he was planning to eliminate the deficit completely by 2012.

Source: Xinhua