On Feb 12, 2008, at 11:06 AM, Max B. Sawicky wrote:
> It's been well established that legislative changes in the 90s were
> a limited (well under 50%) factor in getting to surplus. I don't
> deny that the initial push in the 93 budget was important, but it
> was much less than 'all that.'
>
> Bob Pollin (Contours of Descent) is good on this. The big factors
> in the latter 90s were the stock market bubble and Greasepan.
How then do you account for the big swing in the CBO's cyclically adjusted balance? Expenditures were flat to slightly down, as a percent of GDP, but revenues were substantially up. The stock market and Greenspan would have nothing to do with that.
Doug