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CBO forecasts smaller U.S. federal deficit for 2017 fiscal year

Xinhua, January 25, 2017 Adjust font size:

U.S. federal deficit is expected to drop slightly over the next two years before rising steadily, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said on Tuesday.

The non-partisan CBO estimated that the federal deficit for 2017 fiscal year which starts from Oct. 1, 2016 to Sept. 30, 2017 to drop to 559 billion U.S. dollars, or 2.9 percent of GDP, less than the 587 billion deficit in fiscal 2016.

Deficits are projected to fall to 2.4 percent of GDP in fiscal 2018 before rising almost every year after that into the next decade.

The CBO anticipated the economy to grow at an average annual pace of 2.1 percent over the next two years, after increasing 1.8 percent in 2016. It expected the unemployment rate to drop to 4.4 percent by the fourth quarter of 2018.

The CBO said that current forecasts are based on the expectation that current laws remained unchanged and didn't incorporate any effects of the executive orders or other actions taken by the new administration. Endit