US budget deficits, and 1 surplus, dating to 2001

The federal government’s deficit for the 2012 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, totaled $1.1 trillion. Or, more precisely, $1.089 trillion.

It was $207 billion lower than in 2011. Yet it marked the fourth straight year that the deficit had exceeded $1 trillion.

Here’s a look at the deficits over the past 12 years, dating to 2001, the last time the United States ran a surplus. The surplus that year was one in a string of four from 1998 to 2001. That was the longest stretch in which the budget had been in surplus since the 11 years that ended in 1930.

Before the $1 trillion-plus deficits of the past four years under President Barack Obama, the widest gap had been the $458.6 billion deficit in 2008. That was President George W. Bush’s last full year in office.