The U.S. Treasury Department said Monday it expects to borrow $392 billion in the current quarter to finance the biggest annual budget deficit in U.S. history. The projection is $86 billion lower than the estimate the Treasury issued in November, when it expected to borrow $478 billion. The improvement is mostly due to higher-than-expected repayments of about $90 billion in rescue funds by large banks. The Treasury said it borrowed $260 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, below an earlier estimate of $276 billion. The department also expects to borrow $268 billion in the second quarter of this year. The projections come the same day that President Barack Obama submitted a $3.83 trillion budget request that forecast a record $1.56 trillion federal budget deficit, an increase from the $1.42 trillion deficit in the 2009 budget year.
