Bush budget marks the end of fiscal restraint. Clinton will be remembered as the most fiscally
conservative President of the modern era.
"Line on fiscal restraint hard to hold
Democrats seem ready to join the deficit parade
By Glenn Kessler
THE WASHINGTON POST
The following are excerpts:
THE BIPARTISAN EFFECT
"The president’s budget documents are filled with tough words about
accountability and better performance by government agencies. But having
already proposed a deficit,the administration will be hard-pressed to complain
about Congress’s profligate spending. "
2001 PORK
The administration’s decision to abandon the old constraints
on spending the payroll tax surpluses is a significant change from the
fiscal policy set in place by the Clinton administration and the
GOP-controlled Congress four years ago.
DEBT PAYOFF DEFERRED
Over the next 10 years, the administration projects that the budget
will continue to eat into Social Security and Medicare payroll tax
revenue every year, even if the budget overall returns to surplus.
This means the goal of paying off the nation’s public debt — which a
year ago appeared possible in the next five years — has been indefinitely
deferred. The failure to reduce the debt as planned will force
the government to pay an additional $1 trillion in interest costs over
the next decade.
The administration yesterday abandoned
year-by-year projections over the next decade, arguing they were unreliable.
Congressional Democrats, however, suggested the
numbers looked too grim in the later part of the decade.
Meanwhile, the president is pushing to make his signature tax cut
permanent beyond its current 2010 expiration date. But analysts
were struck by the fact that the administration chose to leave out
the one provision that would affect millions of taxpayers — extending
relief from the alternative minimum tax.
Temporary relief from the minimum tax, included in the tax bill,
expires in 2005, just when the
administration says surpluses will return.
WHITE HOUSE CONCESSION
The administration concedes that without changes, 39 million taxpayers in 2012,
compared with 1 million taxpayers in 2001, will have
to pay the higher tax, which was originally aimed at the very rich.
Virtually every tax analyst says this problem will have to be
addressed soon. But fixing it will reduce federal revenue by more
than $200 billion over the next decade — and the president’s budget
already contains nearly $700 billion in tax cuts.
Over the next five years, in projections before policy proposals
are taken into account, the White House also anticipates receiving $130
billion in higher revenue while spending $80 billion less on Medicare than projected
by the congressional analysts. The forecasts are so
tight over the next few years that such subtle disputes could mean
the difference between deficits and surpluses. |
