WASHINGTON -- The federal government recorded a budget deficit in February only slightly larger than a year ago, with the deficit running below the pace set last year for the first five months of the budget year.
The Treasury Department said the deficit in February totaled $192.6 billion, up 0.1 percent compared with the same month a year ago. So far this budget year, the deficit stands at $353 billion, down 8.7 percent from the same period in 2015, according to the department.
However, that improvement in the deficit is not expected to last.
Both President Barack Obama's administration and the Congressional Budget Office are forecasting deficits for the full year that will be significantly higher than last year's $439.1 billion, which was the lowest annual deficit in eight years.
The budget office sees the annual deficit climbing by 24 percent to $544 billion in the current budget year. Obama's administration is even more pessimistic, forecasting in its 2017 budget released last month that the deficit will hit $616 billion this year.
In December, Congress approved a budget package that increased spending by $1.14 trillion while providing $680 billion in tax cuts over the coming decade. The agreement was part of a compromise between Republicans and the administration.
The measure included many of the domestic spending increases that Obama and Democrats in Congress had been seeking. Meanwhile, Republicans won greater funding for the military and permanent tax cuts for business investment.
Most of the federal budget is committed to mandatory spending in areas such as the federal debt, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. About one-fourth of the budget is labeled discretionary spending and includes domestic and military programs whose budgets are set by the president and Congress.
Both the Congressional Budget Office and the administration foresee the deficit worsening over the next decade, driven higher by rising mandatory spending on programs such as Social Security and Medicare, which will come under pressure as millions of baby boomers retire.
For the current 2016 budget year, which began on Oct. 1, the government has collected $1.25 trillion in revenue, an increase of 5.3 percent from a year ago. Government spending has totaled $1.6 trillion, up 1.9 percent from a year ago.
A Section on 03/11/2016