国际英语新闻：U.S. federal government adds another 80 billion dollars of deficit in December

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Treasury Department reported on Wednesday that the federal budget added another 80 billion dollars of deficit in December 2010, pushing the deficit for the entire year on pace to exceed 1 trillion dollars.

The Treasury report said that the federal government's fiscal imbalance last month was down 12.4 percent from the previous December. Through the first three months of the current budget year which began in October 2010, the deficit totals 370.8 billion dollars, an improvement of 3.1 percent from the same period a year ago.

The U.S. federal deficit, which reached 1.42 trillion dollars in fiscal year 2009, dropped to 1.29 trillion dollars in fiscal year 2010. It is widely expected that the figure will continue to top 1 trillion dollars in 2011.

Many economists say that the U.S. economy will see a much larger deficit due to the Obama administration's tax-cut bill which was signed into law last month.

The bill, aimed at helping boost economic growth, is at a cost of 858 billion dollars.

The U.S. national debt now stands at nearly 13.9 trillion dollars. That's only 400 billion dollars below the 14.3 trillion federal debt ceiling set by Congress.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner reaffirmed on Wednesday that the U.S. government "must restore fiscal responsibility."