U.S. Army Captain Michael Kelvington, commander of the Battle company, 1-508 Parachute Infantry battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, bows next to remains of Gulam Dostager, a member of Afghan Local Police who was killed in the blast of an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) during the joint Tor Janda (Black Flag in Pashtu) operation, in Zahri district of Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan May 25, 2012.  REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov  (AFGHANISTAN - Tags: MILITARY CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

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Members of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels fly over the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan as part of the 25th annual Fleet Week celebration in New York, May 23, 2012.  REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz (UNITED STATES - Tags: MILITARY ANNIVERSARY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

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Final estimate for U.S. budget deficit:$1.4 trillion

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WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 7, 2009 6:43pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government spent a record $1.4 trillion more than it collected in the fiscal year ended September 30, congressional analysts said on Wednesday, in their final estimate before the official numbers are issued.

Bank bailouts, stimulus spending and declining tax revenues due to a deep recession led the government to post a deficit that amounts to 9.9 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product for the 2009 fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office said.

The Treasury Department will report the actual deficit later this month. The deficit for fiscal 2008 was $459 billion.

The $1.4 trillion estimate is less than the budget office's estimate of $1.58 trillion issued in August, but the discrepancy arises from differences in calculating the costs of bailing out mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, not any sudden change in economic conditions, CBO said.

The government took in $2.1 trillion in fiscal 2009, a 16.6 percent drop from the previous year as the recession led to sharp declines in individual and corporate income taxes, CBO said.

On the other half of the ledger, outlays increased 17.8 percent to $3.5 trillion, CBO said.

Among the most expensive items were $154 billion for bailouts under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, $91 billion for the Fannie and Freddie bailouts, and $100 billion under the massive stimulus package approved in February.

Excluding items in the stimulus package, spending for unemployment benefits more than doubled to $120 billion, CBO said.

One bright spot: the government's interest payments on its debt actually decreased 23 percent to $199 billion thanks to lower interest rates, CBO said.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan, editing by Philip Barbara)

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