Word: debts
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...remains a bloated, uncertain thing. Insiders say the spring growth blip was a one-time phenomenon--possibly even a result of inaccurate accounting--fueled by high government spending. The primary problem is that Japan's financial structure--everything from the way companies are managed to the amount of government debt--remains badly out of sync. Many Japanese companies are still chugging along as if it were 1981, complete with overweight overheads, inefficient manufacturing systems and "jobs for life." Japan's banks, long loaded with bad debt, have yet to write off many loans they know will never be repaid...
Absent politics, which is to say, in purely economic terms, the debate focuses on two issues: Should the surplus be returned to taxpayers, who put up the money in the first place? Or should it be used to pay down the $5.6 trillion national debt and shore up wobbly Medicare and Social Security funds? "This is a wonderful problem for the U.S. to have," says Allen Sinai, chief global economist for Primark Decision Economics...
...House measure, which calls for a 10% across-the-brackets cut in income taxes and a reduction of the 20% rate on capital gains to 15%. Translation: the proposals could overheat a strong economy and ignite inflation. Says Greenspan: "The first priority, in my judgment, should be getting the debt down...
...more modest plan focuses on the lower end of the scale. The White House wants to funnel tax breaks into new Universal Savings Accounts, which would serve as government-subsidized iras for low-income earners. The heart of the Administration plan is devoted to paying off the national debt and ensuring the solvency of Social Security and Medicare. Clinton would set aside a third of the projected surplus--or $374 billion--for replenishing Medicare funds that could otherwise expire by 2015. And he would put the interest savings that result from debt reduction into Social Security trust funds, which otherwise...
...Greenspan left the question open, like a warning, and laid down his picks and pans: Debt reduction, which would lower interest rates and free up investment capital -- good. New spending, which neither party trusts the other to lay off of -- bad. Saving for the future ?- good. Putting all your eggs in one tax-cut basket and hoping for the best -? bad. All in all, Greenspan signed off on a rather conservative, rather Republican philosophy. It?s just that the Republican who?s getting all the credit for it is Bill Clinton...