Word: trillion
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...stomp on it. Clinton has pushed a $300 billion spending program, including a new prescription-drug program for Medicare; congressional fists are already clenched. There is talk of grand ideological warfare, of reckless spendthrift Democrats and reckless plutocrat-loving Republicans fighting over how to divvy up the glorious $3 trillion surplus. In this season's budget politics, much of the fight is phony. But that doesn't mean no one's going to get hurt...
...committees of Congress that have to pass 13 spending bills by the end of the month to keep the government running. So far, only two have been sent to Clinton to sign; he has threatened to veto others if they gouge spending too deeply. But, if a $3 trillion surplus is expected over the next 10 years, why would lawmakers be forced to gut programs like air-traffic control and food inspection and counterterrorism? Because two years ago, they promised they would. The problem is the famous 1997 Balanced Budget Act, which balanced the budget only because Congress...
Forrester Research of Cambridge, Mass., a leading Internet analyst, agrees. Its report, Resizing Online Business Trade, predicts that B2B e-commerce will hit a total of $1.3 trillion by 2003, accounting for 9.4% of total U.S. business sales. Varda Lief (see the box, following), a senior analyst at Forrester specializing in e-commerce, says business-to-business transactions will far surpass business-to- consumer deals and dwarf giants like eBay and Amazon.com in revenue and sales. "Business-to-business is the stuff that makes everything run," says Lief...
...both Clinton and the Republicans have already promised to devote two-thirds of the projected $3 trillion, ten-year surplus on shoring up Social Security and Medicare. (In the short term, that means national-debt reduction, because the programs are still healthy, and will remain so for 20 years or so until the baby-boom retirement hits us full-force.) The fight is over that last trillion (give or take a few hundred billion). Republicans want to give $792 billion of it back to the people, and Clinton wants to spend a nearly equal portion -- $750 billion, by some calculations...
...thing is, both Clinton?s plan and the Republicans? stand an excellent chance of busting the budget, but good. If, in the next decade, the economy hiccups, or so-called "emergency" spending increases, or something unexpected simply comes up, that $3 trillion evaporates pretty fast. So why can?t I say no to both? That?s what Alan Greenspan said to Congress last week, although neither side seemed to want to hear it that way. Set the surplus aside, said Sir Alan, because it?s not even paper money yet, and because Americans might really need a tax cut someday...