Thanks to booming tax revenues, the U.S. budget deficit is forecast to surpass administration hopes by falling to $260 billion this fiscal year, congressional experts said Aug. 17. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said it now expects the deficit to fall $58 billion from fiscal 2005 owing to "higher-than-anticipated revenues, mostly from individual and corporate income taxes".
The projection by the non-partisan office would bring the deficit down to 2% of gross domestic product, from 2.6% of GDP last year.
The figure for this year of $260 billion s is $112 billion lower than the amount estimated by the CBO when it analyzed President George W. Bush's budgetary proposals in March. Unveiling a mid-year budget review last month, Bush forecast the deficit would fall to $296 billion for the current fiscal year.
But in the 2007 fiscal year, according to the CBO, the deficit will rise again to reach $286 billion.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006
