WASHINGTON – Nine months into the fiscal year, the federal deficit has topped $1 trillion for the first time.

The imbalance is intensifying fears about higher interest rates and inflation, and already pressuring the value of the dollar. There’s also concern about trying to reverse the deficit — by reducing government spending or raising taxes — in the midst of a harsh recession.

The Treasury Department said Monday that the deficit in June totaled $94.3 billion, pushing the total since the budget year started in October to nearly $1.1 trillion.

The deficit has been propelled by the huge sum the government has spent to combat the recession and financial crisis, combined with a sharp decline in tax revenues. Paying for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also is a major factor.

The country’s soaring deficits are making Chinese and other foreign buyers of U.S. debt nervous, which could make them reluctant lenders down the road. It could force the Treasury Department to pay higher interest rates to make U.S. debt attractive longer-term.

“These are mind boggling numbers,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at the Smith School of Business at California State University. “Our foreign investors from China and elsewhere are starting to have concerns about not only the value of the dollar but how safe their investments will be in the long run.”

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Government spending is on the rise to address the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and an unemployment rate that has climbed to 9.5 percent.

Congress already approved a $700 billion financial bailout and a $787 billion economic stimulus package to try and jump-start a recovery, and there is growing talk among some Obama administration officials that a second round of stimulus may be necessary.

This has many Republicans and deficit hawks worried that the U.S. could be setting itself up for more financial pain down the road if interest rates and inflation surge. They also are raising alarms about additional spending the administration is proposing, including its plan to reform health care.

President Barack Obama and other administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have said the U.S. is committed to bringing down the deficits once the country has emerged from the current recession and financial crisis.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama cited his own long struggle to quit the cigarettes he took up as a teenager as he signed the nation’s strongest-ever anti-smoking bill Monday and praised it for providing critically needed protections for future generations.

“The decades-long effort to protect our children from the harmful effects of smoking has finally emerged victorious,” Obama said during the sun-splashed Rose Garden signing ceremony.

The bill marks the latest legislative victory for Obama’s first five months. Among his other successes: a $787 economic stimulus bill, legislation to expand a state program providing children’s health insurance and a bill making it easier for workers to sue for pay discrimination.

The president has frequently spoken, in the White House and on the campaign trail, of his own struggles to quit smoking. He did so again during the ceremony, bringing it up while criticizing the tobacco industry for marketing its products to young people.

“I know — I was one of these teenagers,” Obama said. “I know how difficult it is to break this habit.”

Before dozens of invited guests, including children from the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, the president signed legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration unprecedented authority to regulate tobacco.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act allows the FDA to lower the amount of nicotine in tobacco products, ban candy flavorings that appeal to kids and block misleading labels such “low tar” and “light.” Tobacco companies also will be required to cover their cartons with large graphic warnings.

The law won’t let the FDA ban nicotine or tobacco outright, but the agency will be able to regulate what goes into tobacco products, make public the ingredients and prohibit marketing campaigns geared toward children.

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“It is a law that will save American lives,” Obama said.

Anti-smoking advocates looked forward to the bill after years of attempts to control an industry so fundamental to the U.S. that carved tobacco leaves adorn some parts of the Capitol.

Opponents from tobacco-growing states such as top-producing North Carolina argued that the FDA had proved through a series of food safety failures that it was not up to the job of regulation. They also said that instead of unrealistically trying to get smokers to quit or to prevent others from starting, lawmakers should ensure that people have other options, like smokeless tobacco.

As president, George W. Bush opposed the legislation and threatened a veto after it passed the House last year. The Obama administration, by contrast, issued a statement declaring strong support for the measure.

While most U.S. voters still blame the Bush Administration for the nation’s economic problems, a growing number are inclined to blame President Barack Obama.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 39% of voters now say the country’s economic problems are caused more by the policies Obama has put in place. That’s a 12-point jump from a month ago.

Fifty-four percent (54%) still say the country’s economic woes are due to the recession Obama inherited from President Bush. That figure is down eight points from 62% from early June.

By a two-to-one margin, voters also have more confidence in themselves than in the president when it comes to the economy. This marks a significant shift from just after Obama took office.

Sixty percent (60%) of voters now trust their own economic judgment more than the president’s. In early February, 49% had more trust in themselves while 39% trusted the president more.

Now only 30% trust Obama more when it comes to the economic issues facing the nation.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter.

Younger voters are more likely than their elders to blame the current economic situation on the recession that began under Bush. The majority of middle income voters place more of the blame on Obama’s policies.

Eighty-two percent (82%) of Democrats see the economic problems as ones largely inherited from the previous administration, while 61% of GOP voters point the finger at the actions of the new president. Unaffiliated voters are almost evenly divided on the question.

Men are more likely than women to trust themselves rather than the president when it comes to the economy. Middle-income voters have more confidence in themselves than those who earn more and less.

The partisan split is predictable. Republicans trust themselves more than Obama by a whopping 75% to 19% margin. The findings for voters not affiliated with either major party are virtually identical. But Democrats are much more closely divided, with nearly half trusting the president more.

Obama’s ratings slipped to new lows at the end of last week in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll, but he continues to be more popular than many of his policies.

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Despite strong public opposition, the president has pushed hard for bailouts for General Motors and Chrysler, both now in structured bankruptcies aimed at keeping them in business. The government has taken substantial ownership stakes in both companies in exchange for federal bailout money, but 80% of U.S. voters want the government to sell its stake in GM and Chrysler as soon as possible.

Even as Obama announced earlier this month his intention to speed up the pace of stimulus spending, the plurality of Americans (45%) said the rest of the new government spending authorized in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan should be canceled.

In fact, most voters (53%) continue to believe increases in government spending hurt the economy. Fifty-one percent (51%) favor an across-the-board tax cut for all Americans to stimulate the U.S. economy.

While the president last week was aggressively campaigning for the creation of a government-run health insurance company to compete with private insurers, Americans are evenly divided now over whether that’s a good idea.

Americans are similarly divided on the urgency of moving ahead with health care reform right now given the state of the economy.