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WASHINGTON - The US budget deficit reached more than one trillion dollars for the current fiscal year in June as the government wrestled with a prolonged recession, official data showed Monday.
Nine months into the 2009 fiscal year that ends September 30, the budget deficit widened by 94.316 billion dollars in June to 1.086 trillion dollars, according to the Treasury's monthly statement of receipts and outlays.
The June deficit was slightly better than the 97.0 billion dollars most analysts had forecasted.
Receipts during the nine-month period to June amounted to 1.588 trillion dollars, eclipsed by outlays of 2.675 trillion dollars.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecasts the budget deficit could hit 1.845 trillion dollars for the fiscal year based on President Barack Obama's administration's 3.5-trillion-dollar budget plan, approved by Congress in early April.
The White House has penciled in a deficit of 1.841 trillion dollars.
On a monthly basis, the budget deficit has increased by record amounts since February as the world's largest economy reels from a brutal recession that began in December 2007.
Typically monthly reports are volatile as revenue and spending fluctuate.
June is traditionally a month of budget surplus, but as in the preceding months, the federal budget was under pressure from a decline in tax revenues and an increase in stimulus and social spending as unemployment and health insurance benefit costs surge.
Receipts in June reached 215.364 billion dollars, a drop of 17 percent from June 2008. It was the 14th consecutive month that receipts have fallen on an annual basis.
Spending in June soared 37 percent from a year ago, to 309.682 billion dollars, a record for the month.
June marked the ninth month the government has run a deficit. The last time the US had a longer stretch was an 11-month streak that ended in March 1992.
- AFP /ls
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