Word: rivlin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...that the Reagan Administration has presented its version of the budget, Congress will take over and actually set the spending limits. Alice Rivlin, director of the Congressional Budget Office and a guest at last week's meeting, pointed out that the lawmakers confront "a very new and different situation that budgeters have never been in before." Past budgets have contained projections that deficits would cease within two to four years. Reason: inflation would boost Americans into higher tax brackets and thus increase revenues faster than spending. The Reagan tax-cut bill passed by Congress last summer changed that pattern...
...deficit would be $15.8 billion. It was actually $57.9 billion. Thus, if past performance is any guide, the Reagan estimates are probably too low. Many experts are already saying that the Administration's outlook for $98.6 billion in red ink during 1982 is too optimistic. Alice Rivlin, director of the Congressional Budget Office, predicted last week that the figure is more likely to be $109 billion...
Normally, periods of economic contraction call for stimulative measures such as cuts in taxes or increases in Government spending to get business going again. But the looming federal deficit is forcing the Administration to begin thinking instead of tax increases and further budget cuts. Said Alice Rivlin, director of the Congressional Budget Office and a guest at last week's meeting: "The lead time on both tax and spending changes is necessarily very long for the Congress, so any serious effort to solve the fiscal 1983 and 1984 deficit problems would have to start right away...
...other hand, Alice Rivlin argued that there simply is not all that much left in the federal budget to cut unless the President begins to look at previously untouchable spending programs. Said she: "To balance the fiscal 1984 budget, you would have to reduce Government spending from 23% of G.N.P to 19%. If you leave out defense spending, interest on the debt and entitlement programs such as Social Security and Civil Service retirement, you wind up having to cut everything else in the budget by more than 75%. That would mean practically closing down the Government." Added Charles Schultze, chief...
Forecasts by experts outside the Administration are even more disquieting. Last week Alice Rivlin, director of the Congressional Budget Office, warned a House banking subcommittee that the deficit could reach $100 billion in fiscal 1984, even if the economy performs well. A deficit of that magnitude would make a mockery of the fiscal conservatism that Reagan promised would be a hallmark of his Administration. One of the most alarming projections of all came from Chase Econometrics, an economic consulting firm, which forecast that without future changes in the law to reduce spending, the deficit will be $144 billion...