>That plus their invention of a 13th month of the fiscal year
>is pretty incredible. They seem hell-bent on appearing ridiculous.
>This is made to order for Clinton. Not only is he going to get his
>way on the tax bill (which died last week), but he'll probably get
>them to cave on the appropriations bills too. Net result is
>oodles of debt reduction, as predicted not too long ago.
dh: What about the spending caps, Max? They still tightly screwed on?
>>>>
That's the $64 dollar question right now. Clinton proposes to raise the caps modestly, though he adds revenue increases to offset the cap increases to protect the oh-so-precious budget surplus. The GOP won't buy the revenue increases. They are casting about for gimmicks, the nature of which will be to make the same task more difficult next fall, in the teeth of the general elections.
Nobody doubts that the caps will be breached in fact. The question is more how the cosmetics will be applied-- whether the increase will be acknowledged forthrightly and applied by changing the law, or whether it will be enabled through accounting atrocities.
Both the Post and Robert Reischauer have said the caps should be raised. So right now elite opinion is leaning towards a modest relaxation of them.
We have some new budget "snapshots" on our web site, for anyone interested. (http://epinet.org) In the immediate future, this will include some amusing material on the Clinton budget.
mbs