Beware The Year of The Surplus
For the past 15 years, one huge, looming menace has dominated American public policy; the federal deficit Fear of the deficit has deterred Democrats from launching big new programs and Republicans from securing big new tax cuts. Now all that has changed.</br></br>The deficit which only five years ago amounted to a record $290 biffion, has suddenly disappeared, and Washington is about to become a very different placeÛÓ possibly a more dangerous one. The deficit applied constraints that made major policy changes almost impossible. Incrementalism ruled, and thatÛªs been a good thing.</br></br>As the growth of government has slowed, the growth of the private sector has accelerated, and the nation has become more prosperous. In a kind of ironic feedback loop, that prosperity has led to increased tax revenues, which have brought down the deficit and led us to 1998, the Year of the Surplus.</br></br>And so, in this new Washington, for the the first time since the Vietnam War, thereÛªs money to spend. Potentially a lot of _ money. The figures are astonishing but at . this point only dimly comprehended by a Û¢ public thatÛªs been bombarded fdr years ; with deficit-fighting rhetoric, much of it phony.	.</br></br>Take a look. In fiscal year 1997, which ended on Sept 30, the budget deficit was just $23 billion. While the budget resolution for fiscal 1998 projected a deficit of $90 billion, the latest estimate of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is for a deficit of $57 billion.