WASHINGTON: The US government posted a $US75.62 billion ($NZ111.28 billion) federal budget deficit in November, down 9 per cent from a year ago as receipts hit a record for the budget year's second month, a Treasury Department report showed on Tuesday.

The deficit for November, the second month of fiscal 2007, compared with an $US83.07 billion deficit in November 2005. The gap, however, was slightly bigger than the $US73.0 billion deficit forecast by Wall Street economists in a Reuters poll.

November receipts reached a record for the month at $US145.87 billion, beating the previous high of $US138.84 billion in November 2005, a Treasury spokeswoman said.

November outlays totalled $US221.48 billion, just below November 2005's outlays of $US221.91 billion.

For the first two months of fiscal 2007, the budget deficit totaled $US124.91 billion, narrowing $US5.44 billion or 4.2 per cent from the $US130.35 billion gap a year earlier, which the Treasury spokeswoman said was the record for the first two months of a fiscal year.

The Congressional Budget Office has not updated its August estimate for a fiscal 2007 deficit of $US286 billion. The United States ended fiscal 2006 on Sept 30 with a deficit of $US247.7 billion.

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