The U.S. government reported a $97.6 billion federal budget deficit for July but remains on track to post its lowest annual budget imbalance in five years. The July figure raises the deficit so far in the 2013 budget year to $607.4 billion, the Treasury Department said Monday, or 37.6 percent below the $973.8 billion deficit for the first 10 months of the 2012 budget year. Steady economic growth, higher taxes, lower government spending, and increased repayments from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have helped shrink the deficit this year. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts the annual deficit will be $670 billion when the budget year ends September 30, far below last year's $1.09 trillion. It would be the first year that the imbalance between spending and revenue has been below $1 trillion since 2008. The United States has run full-year budget deficits continuously since 2001, and the size of deficits has grown massively since 2009, when a surge in unemployment fueled higher government spending.
