Mired in a Fog Bank of Amendments
How is the U.S. Senate like the San Francisco Bay area? On any given day, the chances are pretty good the fog will roll in. Take this week, for example.</br></br>On Monday, fresh from Easter recess, the Senate began considering a $1.1 trillion federal budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. Yet, aside from the opening ceremonies, it was not until late yesterday that the talk got around to the spending blueprint under consideration.</br></br>Instead, the Senate spent the better part of three days socked in under a series of amendments to take various federal trust funds "off budget" for purposes of computing the federal deficit. The exercise began with an amendment by Budget Committee Chairman Lawton Chiles (D-Fla.) expressing the sense of Congress that surpluses building up in the Social Security Trust Fund should not be used in figuring the size of the nation's monstrous budget deficit.</br></br>Chiles' amendment goes to the heart of an accounting debate that has a long history, and which is likely to get louder as the trust fund reserves continue to grow in coming years to cover the benefits obligated to future Social Security beneficiaries. Chiles and others argue that the surplus tends to obscure the true extent of the federal deficit and gives an unrealistic view of the task of bringing the budget into balance.</br></br>As if deficits in the range of $170 billion weren't enough, the true deficit, Chiles said, is about $220 billion, because the Social Security Trust Fund surplus next fiscal year will be about $46 billion. His amendment, Chiles said, is designed to "clear off the haze so we can see all the deficit, and deal with it head-on."