US budget deficit running 24.2 percent below 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government ran a lower deficit this July than a year ago, keeping it on course to record the lowest deficit in six years.<br /> <br /> The July deficit was $94.6 billion, an improvement of 3.1 percent from a year ago, the Treasury Department reported Tuesday in its monthly budget statement.<br /> <br /> For the first 10 months of this budget year, the deficit totals $460.5 billion, down 24.2 percent from the same period a year ago.<br /> <br /> The Congressional Budget Office expects this year's deficit to total around $500 billion, down from $680.2 billion last year. That would be the lowest deficit since an imbalance of $458.6 billion in 2008, which was a record at the time. The Great Recession and efforts to deal with the financial crisis sent deficits above $1 trillion for four straight years.<br /> <br /> The July imbalance followed a $70.5 billion surplus in June, a month when government coffers are swelled by quarterly tax payments. But without the quarterly payments, the government ran a deficit in July, a month when it has recorded deficits in 58 of the last 60 years.<br /> <br /> The yearly deficit peaked at $1.4 trillion in 2009 and remained above $1 trillion for each of the next three years, finally falling to $680.2 billion last year.

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