Bush's Budget Projects Deficit Of $327.3 Billion --- Clinton Calls Latest Figures Unsettling, Vows Steps To Help Shrink the Gap
WASHINGTON -- President Bush told Bill Clinton that he is inheriting a record $327.3 billion budget deficit for the current fiscal year and that the deficit four years hence will also exceed $300 billion without major changes in taxes and government spending.</br></br>The president-elect, who suggested that the White House budget office was hiding the true size of the deficit, called the figures "unsettling" and vowed to "make the difficult choices" required to shrink the budget gap.</br></br>By calling so much attention to the deficit figures and describing them as understated, Mr. Clinton appears to be laying the groundwork for backing off some of his campaign promises and proposing tax increases and spending cuts beyond those outlined in his campaign plan. Mr. Clinton meets with his economic advisers in Little Rock today to begin making budget decisions.</br></br>"We now can see the full magnitude of the debt we will inherit," Mr. Clinton said. "This sounds the final warning bell: this endless pattern of rising deficits must stop."</br></br>The new budget office figures put the deficit for the year ending Sept. 30, 1997, at $305 billion, but Clinton communications director George Stephanopoulos said yesterday that the numbers understate the deficit by $50 billion to $60 billion. Clinton aides say that, based on figures they have been given by budget office staff, the 1997 deficit would be $384 billion if the current level of services and defense spending is to be maintained.