Deficit lower than expected.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/us/17deficit.html?ref=us

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The 2009 fiscal year began last October, just as President George W. Bush and Congress were contending with the near-collapse of the financial system and working to enact what became a $700 billion rescue plan. After Mr. Obama took office, administration officials calculated that the deficit would surpass $1.2 trillion. Mr. Geithner and Mr. Orszag recalled that forecast in their statement on Friday.

The 2009 deficit, they said, “was largely the product of the spending and tax policies inherited from the previous administration, exacerbated by a severe recession and financial crisis that were under way as the current administration took office.”

The economic recovery efforts, through the Troubled Asset Relief Program for financial institutions, known as Tarp, and the $787 billion, two-year stimulus package, accounted for just under a quarter of the deficit, they said.

The administration’s calculation of a $1.4 trillion deficit tracks an estimate last week from the Congressional Budget Office that anticipated the data from the Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget. The actual deficit was slightly lower than each had expected in August, when the White House budget office projected a $1.8 trillion deficit and the Congressional office forecast $1.6 trillion.

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