The Vanishing Surplus, Barely Noticed
September 8, 2001
By ANDREW KOHUT
From The New York Times
W ASHINGTON -- Judging from recent political discourse, "Who
lost the budget surplus?" threatens to become the "Who lost China?"
question of our times — the focus of finger-pointing for years to come. But
there is a problem with that parallel: The American public knew about the
loss of China — not so with the surplus.
As recently as June, a 46 percent plurality in a survey by the Pew Research
Center for the People and the Press thought the federal government was
spending more than it took in this year. Only 19 percent knew it was
spending less. The debate over the budget surplus is one of those
Washington conversations that goes right by the public, in part because of its
complexity, but in larger part because of people's cynicism.
It's very hard for people who were lectured and admonished for years about
a federal deficit — and told it would rob their children of their future — to
shift gears so quickly and worry about the surplus.
The budget deficit slipped away in the night during Bill Clinton's presidency, with little fanfare and little
explanation short of each party trying to take credit for it. No political leader
stood up to say, "We were not expecting this either, and it's happened
mostly because the economy zoomed ahead, also unexpectedly."
As a consequence, despite all the talk in the past couple of years about what
to do with the surplus, nationwide surveys have shown only limited increases
in awareness of the reality of the surplus. And not surprisingly, when poll
takers inform respondents that the surplus does exist, Americans are quick to
discount reliance on it. Two in three respondents in nationwide surveys this
past spring by Newsweek, ABC and The Washington Post said the
projected "$6 trillion surplus" would prove to be lower than expected.
Similarly, a Pew survey to be released next week finds a plurality of the
public expecting a smaller rather than larger surplus.
While the reality of the surplus never fully sank in, and people have been
quick to minimize it when told that it existed, the conversation about it has
mattered to ordinary Americans. The projections of surplus opened up a
discussion of new government spending, and that is where the ears have
perked up. Americans tell poll takers about a long wish list for new spending,
with education and prescription drug benefits through Medicare at the top —
but nothing is more important to Americans than protecting Social Security
and not using its revenues to pay for other things. Yet three in four
Americans think that the government has spent the Social Security reserves
on other programs and that this is the main reason that the system is in
financial trouble.
Sparring between the White House and the Democrats over whether the tax
cut endangers needed spending or threatens the inviolability of Social
Security funds will certainly go on despite the fact that the tax cut passed
because it had support from some Democrats. Blaming the other party when
no one is really in a position to be absolved of blame can only add to public
cynicism and doubts about the debate in Washington. An August Gallup
survey that pretested the blame game found the president was held most
responsible for the shrinking of the surplus, but most respondents also
assumed that the Democrats in Congress bore some responsibility.
The direction of the economy is about the only thing likely to clear the air on
this argument for ordinary Americans. Fully 80 percent in a new Pew survey
say keeping the economy strong is the most important thing the president and
Congress can do. If the tax cut comes to be viewed as the stimulus that
revived the economy or, at minimum, put a Band-Aid on it, the president will
prevail. If, on the other hand, the economy continues to decline and the wish
list gets trashed, the president's signature tax cut program will be seen to
have led the country astray. In the end, "who lost the surplus" is the wrong
rhetoric. The public wants to know what will fix the economy.
Andrew Kohut is the director of the Pew Research Center for the
People and the Press.
nytimes.com |
