U.S. Posts Budget Surplus for January
The federal government posted a rare surplus of $16.09 billion last month, primarily because Social Security checks for January were mailed early, the Treasury Department said yesterday.</br></br>The January surplus, the first since September, occurred because Social Security checks, which normally go out on the third day of the month, were mailed Dec. 31 because of New Year's holiday. The early payment inflated spending in December and lowered spending in January.</br></br>For the first four months of the fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, the monthly deficits have totaled $65.81 billion, down 0.7 percent from the same period in the 1987 fiscal year.</br></br>For all of 1988, the Reagan administration is projecting that the budget deficit will fall to $146.74 billion, down 2.5 percent from last year's deficit of $150.4 billion.</br></br>However, the Congressional Budget Office, using less optimistic assumptions about economic growth this year, projects a 1988 deficit of $157 billion, well above the target of $144 billion set in the Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction law.