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Change Your Life! |
Clinton
to increase mammoth budget surplus |
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News |
June 23, 2000
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. President Bill Clinton is preparing to announce a mammoth dlrs 1 trillion increase in the administration's 10-year budget surplus projection, and will propose using it for faster debt reduction, beefed up Medicare benefits and deeper tax cuts, Democrats say.
The new forecast is expected to bring projected surpluses for the decade ending in 2010 to dlrs 1.9 trillion, without counting Social Security. That would more than double the dlrs 746 billion the White House predicted in February, a deluge of cash fueled by the formidable economy.
A deep, long-lasting recession could make the projected surpluses shrink or vanish. Nonetheless, with Treasury Department figures showing that it has been collecting unexpected mountains of revenue in recent months, the projected deluge of cash had been expected.
As a result, it has already influenced election-year politics.
George W. Bush, the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting, is using the bigger numbers to fend off Democratic arguments that his plans for tax cuts and Social Security are irresponsible. And Vice President Al Gore, the likely Democratic candidate, has trotted out a parade of spending and tax-cut proposals that would be financed from federal surpluses.
White House officials were refusing Wednesday to discuss the announcement, which Clinton could make as early as Monday. But on condition of anonymity, some congressional Democrats, lobbyists and others discussed its general framework.
Clinton said Tuesday he would use some of the surplus - dlrs 40 billion over 10 years - to boost Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and other health care providers. Lawmakers say the payments are aimed at restoring cuts made as part of the 1997 budget-balancing deal that went deeper than expected.
But when he announces his new surplus figures, he will also propose making his prescription drug plan for Medicare recipients more generous. That plan would cost dlrs 149 billion over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated. Clinton will also endorse fencing off Medicare's projected surpluses from use for spending or tax cuts. That idea is also supported by Gore, and the House voted 420-2 Tuesday to do the same thing.
Lawmakers have routinely spent Medicare surpluses for other purposes for decades. But now, surpluses have grown so large that politicians have found there is enough money for spending and tax cuts without using the Medicare funds. Clinton will also propose using a large portion of the new surplus figure to move up the date by which he plans to eliminate the dlrs 3.5 trillion publicly held portion of the national debt. His budget envisioned eliminating that debt by 2013. The new numbers will move up that date, perhaps to sometime within the next decade, Democrats said. The overall national debt is dlrs 5.7 trillion. The remaining dlrs 2.2 trillion is money the government owes its own trust funds, like Social Security.
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