WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (KUNA) -- The US budget deficit for Fiscal Year 2010 dropped nine percent compared to Fiscal Year 2009, reaching USD 1.294 trillion, government data showed Friday.
The Department of Treasury indicated that the deficit for FY 2010 was USD 1.
294 trillion, USD 122 billion or nine percent less than in FY 2009, and USD 177 billion or 12 percent less than estimated in the July 2010.
The Treasury indicated that the deficit was also USD 261 billion or 17 percent less than the estimate in the President Barack Obamas FY 2011 Budget submitted to Congress in February 2010.
As a percentage of GDP, the deficit fell to 8.9 percent, down from 10.0 percent of GDP in FY 2009, the data indicated.
Commenting on this, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Acting Director Jeffrey Zients underscored the Administration's "commitment to getting Federal finances back on a sustainable path and ending emergency programs that proved instrumental to reviving growth while beginning the process of bringing down our deficit".
They said in a joint statement that "as a result, our fiscal outlook, which remains challenging, has improved over the past year".
"Due to careful stewardship of the emergency programs, their effect on the deficit was much smaller than previously estimated," they affirmed.
For his part, Geithner said "by carefully managing the emergency initiatives to stop the financial panic and by accelerating our exit from those investments, we have significantly lowered the cost to taxpayers, bringing the costs of the financial rescue down by more than USD 240 billion this year".
"However, we still have a long way to go to repair the damage to the economy and address the long-term deficits caused by the crisis," he added.
For his part, Zients said "thanks in large part to the tough decisions this Administration made over the past two years, the economy is recovering and we're spurring economic growth and job creation". (end) si.bs KUNA 152236 Oct 10NNNN