MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Record US budget deficit.

The United States budget deficit for the financial year ended September 30 reached a new historic record: 374,2 billion US dollars, double the 2002 deficit and greater that the 1992 all time record of 290 billion US dollars.

The deficit was in line with private forecasts but far lower than the Bush administration's expectations of 455 billion US dollars.

However government officials who blamed the imbalance to a slow economy and the war in Iraq warned that in the current financial year the budget could peak 500 billion US dollars before beginning to fall.

"As the economy grows government revenue will grow and this will help keep the budget under control", said US Treasury Secretary John Snow.

The Bush administration officials have also played down the magnitude of the deficit saying that it's smaller in relation to GDP than it was for example during the Reagan years.

The current financial year will also coincide with the presidential re-election and Democrats are expected to blast President Bush over the deficit and a gigantic tax cut that is bound to increase the imbalance.