A new estimate puts the deficit for the just-completed 2012 budget year at $1.1 trillion, the fourth straight year of trillion dollar deficits on President Barack Obama's watch. The result was a slight improvement from the 2011 deficit of $1.3 trillion. The bleak figures from the Congressional Budget Office, while expected, add fodder for the heated presidential campaign, in which Obama's handling of the economy and the budget is a main topic. The administration will release the official deficit numbers around mid-October, but they should line up closely with the CBO estimate, which showed that the government borrowed 31 cents for every dollar it spent. The CBO estimate predicts a modest 3 percent increase over 2011 in both income tax and payroll tax receipts, reflecting the sluggish economic recovery. Corporate income tax receipts are way up â almost 34 percent â but most of that is a result of tax rules governing write-offs of business equipment. Spending fell across a broad array of categories, the CBO said, but not Social Security and Medicare. Social Security payments rose by 6 percent, while Medicare grew by 3 percent, slightly less than in prior years. Lower war costs meant a 3 percent decline in defense outlays, however, and the cost of unemployment benefits dropped 24 percent because fewer people have been receiving benefits recently. Medicaid costs dropped as well, because the federal government stopped paying a higher share of the program's costs. Obama inherited an economy in recession and a deficit in excess of $1 trillion. He promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, but deficits have instead remained at eye-popping levels, including a record $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009 and deficits of $1.3 trillion in each of the past two years. The 2012 deficit was 7 percent of the size of the economy, an unsustainably high level. In Wednesday night's debate, Obama said he has a budget plan to shave $4 trillion from the deficit over the coming decade, but he counts $1 trillion from savings already accomplished in budget deals with Republicans last year and $848 billion from winding down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. http://www.cnbc.com/id/49306231