Editorial

U.S. BUDGET: TAX CUTS VERSUS SPENDING

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Congress has passed and sent to President Clinton a $1.74 trillion budget for fiscal year 2000 that deals addresses tax cuts and Social Security. "Its passage," reads an Associated Press story, "marks only the second time Congress has completed the measure on time since the April 15 deadline was set in 1987, a win for Republicans eager to show they're doing the nation's business." The budget passed the Senate by a party-line vote of 54-44, while in the House it passed by 220-208, with only three Democrats in support.

The blueprint maps GOP plans for a new budgetary era in which annual federal surpluses seem to stretch to the horizon and beyond. Over the next decade Republicans would set aside all $1.8 trillion in expected Social Security surpluses to reduce the national debt. They would use most of the rest of the surplus -- at least $778 billion -- for tax cuts. Democrats in Congress and the White House were quick to criticize the document, decrying the size of tax cuts Republicans are proposing. The president supports a much smaller tax cut and $38 billion in if-you-clean-your-room tax credits to help people establish retirement savings accounts. He and his allies want much more of the surplus used for Medicare and other social programs.

The battle is now joined between congressional Republicans who want to cut taxes on overworked and overtaxed Americans, and Clinton Democrats who want to spend the money and dole out tax breaks to a favored few.