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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ManyMoose who wrote (157627)	7/4/2001 2:20:20 PM
From: ColtonGang	Respond to of 769667

Look what's happening to the surplus......Senator warns of 'raid' on Social Security July 3, 2001 Posted: 10:14 PM EDT (0214 GMT) By Dana Bash CNN Washington Bureau WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The new Democratic Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, said Tuesday the White House-engineered tax cut and spending priorities, combined with shrinking federal surplus dollars, would mean a "raid" on the Medicare and Social Security trust funds by next year. Conrad said the government would have to dip into $17 billion of the Medicare trust fund this year. In 2002, he said, an additional $38 billion of Medicare as well as $4 billion in Social Security trust fund dollars would be spent. Democrats repeatedly warned during the budget and tax cut debates of the spring that surpluses expected to pay for it all may not materialize. New White House estimates show this year's federal surplus will be more than $200 billion, $75 billion less than expected. ALSO The incredible shrinking budget surplus "In six short months, this administration, after advocating a tax cut that was too large and after putting belief in a 10-year estimate of revenue, have put us in the bad old days of raiding every trust fund in sight," Conrad said. The White House says all Medicare money will go into the Medicare trust fund to avoid dipping into the surplus. Republicans say they have been warning of a slowing economy and say their tax cut will have a stimulus yet to be seen. "Republicans want to give back tax relief to the American people... it's going to have a stimulus effect. We just have a disagreement in philosophy," said Ron Bonjean, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi. Conrad said he plans to call White House chief economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey and Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels before his committee next week "to give us their ideas and what they would recommend we do." "I believe they have an affirmative obligation to come up with spending cuts or new revenue to prevent us from raiding the Medicare and Social Security trust funds," said Conrad. He warned his dire new projections do not account for White House spending requests for extra money on big-ticket items such as defense and education. "The request for an additional $18 billion for 2002 for defense would just make this situation worse, and I told the secretary of defense I believe they have an affirmative obligation to come up with a way of paying for this," said Conrad. Although he called the large tax cut and requests for increased defense spending reminiscent of moves in the 1980s that led to major federal deficits, Conrad said it is more dangerous now as the baby boomer generation nears retirement.