Doug
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>Perspectives on the Budget Surplus
>Alan J. Auerbach, William G. Gale
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>NBER Working Paper No. W7837
>Issued in August 2000
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>---- Abstract -----
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>This paper provides alternative measures of federal budget surpluses
>over 10-year and long-term horizons. Official baseline budget
>forecasts are based on a series of statutory requirements that may
>be at variance with reasonable expectation. More plausible notions
>of current policy toward discretionary spending, taxes and
>retirement trust funds imply that surpluses over the next 10 years
>will be substantially smaller than the baseline forecasts indicate.
>Properly accounting for long-term imbalances in social security and
>the rest of the budget implies that, under plausible definitions of
>current policy, the federal government faces a long-term shortfall.