Word: surpluses
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...alarmed, positive but not Pollyannaish. This kind of delicate hand holding may be as much as any President can do to alter the course of a sprawling national economy. Having already deployed his most powerful weapon, tax cuts, and shackled himself to a promise not to spend Social Security surplus money, he is left to temper the worry during the wait. But the longer it lasts, the more the downturn is foreshortening Bush's plans and expectations, endangering everything he wants to get done in office. The downturn has taken chunks out of the magical budget surplus, threatening the President...
...second item on the agenda was money. There would be no arguments: A truce had been called in the bitter political war over dipping into the hundreds of billions of dollars piling up in the Social Security surplus. They'd dip into the fund. The men huddled in Hastert's office debated how much would be needed. The White House already had told Congress it wanted $20 billion to help rebuild the damaged Pentagon, deal with the New York catastrophe and bolster security. But $20 billion might not be enough, one of the leaders said. "You're probably right," Lott...
...Congress prepared Thursday to hand a stack of blank checks to President Bush, who promised to "spend whatever it takes" to rebuild the shattered parts of his nation. Certainly the debate over whether to dip into the Social Security surplus is a faint memory. Infusions of government funds into industries like defense and security are likely in the near future...
...still other words, mostly Republican voters, which is why the cut has little chance. With the surplus already headed into the red, Bush isn't about to bust the budget again for the Americans he's helped the most so far -and who, their power to goose Wall Street notwithstanding, need the money least...
...House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott also want to pass a stimulus package that includes a cut in the capital gains tax, hoping to juice up the economy in the short term and grow their way out of the surplus shortfall. Bush is intrigued, but not sure he wants to buy into more tax cuts that might plunge the government into more red ink later. The White House and Congress are also mulling whether to slow down the outlay rates for next year - that's the money the government actually spends for budgeted items - in order...