Word: socialism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...case, the plans cannot be judged purely on economic grounds. They embed highly controversial political and social judgments. Just how much government do the people want, and what do they think it should do? Are the pending surpluses a heaven-sent opportunity to spend more on high priorities like education while still reducing debt? Or is the money likely just to be wasted, whereas if put into the pockets of citizens through tax cuts, it would be spent productively? The President and Congress elected next year will of course not pass either plan in toto. Whatever initial deal they strike...
...kind of growth that is actually going to occur." That would imply surpluses even greater than projected--a prospect confirmed by Allen Sinai, chief global economist for Primark Decision Economics, a forecasting firm. Sinai's "baseline" forecast, assuming no changes in taxes or spending patterns, is for a non-Social Security surplus of $1.3 trillion, or 30% above the official guess for the next decade...
...Domenici's predecessors as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, decried all talk of surpluses as "a circus act if I've ever seen one." Said he: "Instead of the deficit and debt going down, they're going up." His point: while the government is no longer borrowing from Social Security, it is still borrowing heavily from trust funds for Medicare, pensions for military and civilian government employees, highway building and other things. Without those nonpublic borrowings, he contended, the government ran a deficit of $127.8 billion last fiscal year, and the debt, including amounts owed by one part...
Which introduced one of the revolutionary implications of the surpluses that the board majority agreed really are in prospect. At TIME's meeting, Summers indicated that the $3.5 trillion public debt would be wiped out completely if all the Social Security surpluses and part of the non-Social Security surpluses projected to emerge over the next 15 years were used to pay it off. That would create a host of new challenges for economists and currency traders. What kind of security, for example, could replace the 30-year Treasury bond as the bellwether of bond trading and as a particular...
...significant bang for the buck," in Sinai's phrase, in spurring investment and entrepreneurial incentive. The Democrats propose a tax cut that is really a savings incentive--in Sinai's opinion, a good idea. They would increase government spending on the military and through transfers for education and other social purposes and reduce debt much more than would the Republicans--although the Republican reduction of $257 billion over 10 years from non-Social Security surpluses is scarcely a pittance. The Democratic spending proposals, in Sinai's view, "are targeted for things that will be productive and not the old welfare...