Word: cbo
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...withering fire that riddled the Clinton plan this week will not end soon. The Democratically controlled Congressional Budget Office is expected to release its own report on the Administration proposal, and aides to Senate Democrats predict the findings will be, as one put it, "unfavorable." If the CBO decides the new insurance premiums are actually a tax in disguise, critics will find it even easier to condemn the whole approach as a tax-and-spend extravaganza that would add 25% to the federal budget by 1998. "Bad as this week was," said one Democratic Senate aide, "next week will make...
...increased tax revenues and helped the Administration reduce the federal budget deficit to a surprising extent. Just one year ago, the Congressional Budget Office projected a whopping $284 billion shortfall for fiscal 1995, which begins next October, and $287 billion for fiscal 1996. But last month the nonpartisan CBO predicted the budget gap would narrow to $166 billion in 1996. That would trim the deficit to just 2.2% of the country's gross domestic product, the lowest level since 1979. "Clinton's tax increases and spending cuts are largely responsible," says CBO director Robert Reischauer. "We have taken an important...
...thing? Deficit reduction on that order is how the national debt grew from $994 billion when Reagan came into office to $4.4 trillion when Clinton arrived. Though the White House also announced last week that this year's deficit will add just $255 billion -- not the $322 billion the CBO predicted in January -- even that figure amounts to an uncomfortable 4.1% of gross domestic product. So Penny has taken Clinton at his word about welcoming more input from Congress. He and Ohio Republican John Kasich are sponsoring a proposal for $103 billion in further cuts over five years...
...crawling into the light. The Commerce Department reported last week that GDP grew in the third quarter at an annual rate of 2.8% -- up from 1.9% in the second. But that gathering speed is precisely why now is the time to make cuts, says economist Rudy Penner, a former CBO director. "The economy is growing. If we don't do it now, then after a while the only way we'll be able to pay the debt is to print money...
...trouble began almost immediately; the "natural effects" started changing shortly after the new plan surfaced. By August the anemic economy and spiraling health-care costs caused the CBO to increase its estimate of the 1996 deficit by $100 billion, a profound change that both the Clinton and Bush campaigns conveniently ignored. "To accommodate the CBO's new predictions would have made it look like we were caving in to Perot's view of the world," says a Clinton adviser. "Also, redoing PPF would have told the constituencies we needed to win that we'd be hard pressed to fund...