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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (70412)	11/11/1999 11:09:00 PM
From: Les H	Respond to of 132070

Enjoy This "Budget Surplus" While It Lasts BusinessWeek Online You'd better do it quickly, because Congress has a plan for every dollar of that money -- and then some Take a good look. For the first time in nearly 40 years the federal government may have -- for real -- balanced the budget. But don't blink. Because it may not happen again in our lifetimes. Actually, there's a statistical margin of error involved. The Congressional Budget Office, official scorekeeper for these things, reported that for fiscal 1999, the year that ended on Sept. 30, the budget was in surplus by...drumroll please...$1 billion. Of course, this being Washington, the CBO warned that its estimate could be wrong by plus or minus $3 billion. Not for nothing do they call it "good enough for government work." No matter. Washington spent almost $1.8 trillion last year. With that kind of money flying around, let's call the budget balanced and move on. The trouble is, the idea of significant future surpluses is a pipe dream. The CBO says they could be as high as $50 billion by 2005. But that will never happen. Why? Because for politicians, projected surpluses exist for only one reason: to be spent on either new programs or tax cuts. DRIBBLING BILLIONS. Observe what's happening to this year's budget, which Congress and the White House are still wrangling over. The surplus for FY 2000 was supposed to be $15 billion. But it is already long gone, dribbled out a few billion at a time for farm aid, weapons systems, highways, and the rest. By the time Congress leaves town in a month or so, it will appear as if the 2000 budget is in balance. But that will be thanks to an extraordinary collection of arcane accounting gimmicks. By the time the bills are actually paid later in the year, we'll all realize that a $14 billion surplus has turned into a $20 billion deficit. But by then, the pols figure, no one will be paying attention. All eyes will be on the election. And down the road? Well, Democratic Presidential hopefuls Al Gore and Bill Bradley have already spent the projected surpluses. Bradley wants to put aside a staggering $65 billion a year just for new health-care programs. And Gore has a laundry list of targeted tax breaks and education programs that will slurp up black ink just as fast. REAL DOUGH. The fiscally conservative Republicans are no better. Front-runner George W. Bush has already endorsed a $792 bilion congressional tax cut that would consume every dime of the projected surplus for the next decade. And he still has to pay for his own Medicare reforms, another priority that will cost real dough. After two decades of huge deficits, I suppose I should be happy that all these give-aways will do no more harm than keep the budget in balance. But, somehow, I'm not.