Budget Deficit Keeps On Shrinking

With only one month left to report in the government’s fiscal year, the budget deficit is on track to be the smallest in 23 years.

Red ink in August totaled $34.6 billion, the Treasury Department said Monday. That was a bit less than the $38 billion predicted by economists and brought the shortfall for the first 11 months of the budget year to $71.3 billion, 50 percent less than during the same period of fiscal 1996.

With a substantial surplus expected in September from quarterly tax payments, the government should have little trouble recording a deficit for all of fiscal 1997 at or under the $37 billion projected earlier this month by the Clinton administration, analysts said.