Word: surplus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...fact--the Federal Government has been spending money and every year leaving behind a prodigious pile of ious. As recently as 1992, the government spent a record $290 billion more than it took in, and the deficit would have been much larger without a big Social Security surplus. That was before the 1997 budget deal that began winding down the deficit, however. Now the payoff is here. In the fiscal year just ended, Uncle Sam rolled up a $123 billion surplus, by far the biggest in the nation's history. Even the non-Social Security part of the government about...
...assumptions used to create them. His Senate counterpart, New Mexico Republican Pete Domenici, pointed out that those estimates factor in two mild recessions sometime during the next 10 years and include assumptions that "do not contemplate the 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...
...everyone at the meeting agreed. Alicia Munnell, a former member of Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, now a professor at Boston College School of Management, voiced distrust of the surplus estimate, arguing that caps on federal spending budgeted for the next three fiscal years are wildly unrealistic and will--in fact, should--be exceeded. Already the government is evading spending caps by sticking an "emergency" label on all sorts of additional outlays. That, said Munnell, "makes a mockery of the whole process." Also, she noted, revenues are getting a huge boost from soaring stock prices, which inflate capital-gains...
...government budget deficit and projected surplus...
Cumulative surplus: $2.9 trillion...