U.S. records $51.3 billion surplus in January

Deficit to be slightly lower, projection forecast shows.

WASHINGTON — The federal government ran a budget surplus in January that was smaller than last year’s surplus.

The Treasury Department reported Friday that the surplus this year was $51.3 billion, down 7.1 percent from a January surplus a year ago of $55.2 billion. The government has run a surplus in January in 24 of the past 63 years. Government revenue is boosted in that month by quarterly estimated tax payments.

Through the first four months of this budget year, which began Oct. 1, the deficit totaled $156.9 billion. That was 2.2 percent lower than the $160.4 billion deficit during 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 take into account President Donald Trump’s proposed stimulus program.

According to the estimate the CBO 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 to repair the nation’s aging infrastructure. Trump said development of his economic program was “way ahead of schedule” and that it 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 report showed that through the first four months of this budget year, revenues 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.