WASHINGTON -- The federal government ran a budget surplus in January that was smaller than the surplus recorded in the same month a year ago.
On Friday, the Treasury Department reported that the surplus this year was $51.26 billion, down 7.1 percent from a January 2016 surplus of $55.2 billion. The government has run a surplus in January in 24 of the past 63 years. Government revenue in that month is typically boosted by quarterly estimated tax payments.
Through the first four months of the current federal budget year that began Oct. 1, the overall budget deficit totaled $156.94 billion. That's 2.2 percent lower than the $160.4 billion deficit over the same period last year.
The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the deficit this year will be slightly lower than last year's imbalance, a forecast that does not cover President Donald Trump's proposed stimulus program.
According to the estimate the budget office released last month, the 2017 deficit under current law will total $559 billion, down 4.8 percent from last year's deficit of $587 billion.
Trump has called for a program of tax cuts for businesses and individuals and increased government spending in such areas as repairing the nation's aging infrastructure.
In a meeting with airline executives Thursday, Trump said development of his economic program was "way ahead of schedule" and should be released over the next two to three weeks. Trump said the program "will be phenomenal in terms of tax and developing our aviation infrastructure."
The Treasury Department report showed that through the first four months of this budget year, revenue totaled $1.08 trillion, up 0.5 percent from the same period a year ago. Government spending totaled $1.24 trillion, an increase of 0.2 percent from the same period a year ago.
Accumulating budget deficits add to the overall federal debt, which now totals more than $19.92 trillion. That figure includes about $5.4 trillion the government owes itself, mostly from borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund.
A Section on 02/11/2017