Word: surplus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Clinton Administration's drive to pare the U.S. budget deficit, which has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest fantasies. Among other things, he noted, the fiscal achievement turned what government economists in the mid-1990s projected would be a $400 billion deficit in fiscal 1999 into a $120 billion surplus. At the same time, individual stock-market investors are behaving almost like professional venture capitalists, ignoring short-term profits--or the lack of them--in favor of long-term gains. "There's been a real strengthening of equity culture," he said...
...care entitlements (insurance for children, a prescription-drug benefit) and even, in the vaguest of terms, universal health care. McCain has also been butting heads with Bush on the question of tax cuts--arguing that the truly conservative position is to keep the tax cut modest and use the surplus to save Social Security and pay down the debt. Bush calls that a Clintonian approach--on Friday in South Carolina he began airing TV spots saying as much--but according to the new TIME/CNN poll, nearly three-quarters of likely G.O.P. primary voters in the state agree with McCain. Does...
...mechanics but also in its ideas. He has mostly forsaken large-scale policy speeches in favor of town-hall Q.s and A.s, where issues can be dealt with in catchphrases. His few attempts at concreteness tend to collapse in self-contradiction. He wants to use the budget surplus to shore up Social Security and preserve it for future generations; at the same time, he would undermine it by letting workers deposit part of their payroll taxes in private accounts. Long an advocate of a flat tax with minimal loopholes, McCain proposed a tax plan riddled with loopholes for the middle...
Democrats, who decry the Republican plan as "a waste of a golden opportunity," are leaning in favor of using the projected surplus to bulk up Social Security and Medicare. Only when those programs are secured, and the debt is paid down, they say, can Congress offer such a considerable cut. They also say the GOP plan unfairly favors the well-off, and claim that their plan will direct money to low- and middle-income taxpayers. These are old arguments, says Baumohl, and there won't be an easy resolution, at least not before the November election. "The Republicans see themselves...
...election year - and that means, among other things, that it's time for promises of miraculous, sweeping tax cuts that benefit all Americans and somehow hurt no one. That's the unlikely formula surplus-happy Democrats and Republicans are selling on Capitol Hill, and so far the Republicans have triumphed on at least one front. Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted to adopt the Republican-sponsored Marriage Tax Elimination Act, which would cost the government $182 billion and return an average of $1,400 to the pockets of married couples each year. President Clinton has vowed to veto...