[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 20 (Wednesday, March 4, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H763]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




BEFORE WE SPEND OUR FEDERAL SURPLUS, WE BETTER MAKE SURE WE REALLY HAVE 
                                  ONE

  (Mr. DUNCAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, every day we hear all kinds of talk now 
about how we are going to spend the Federal surplus. Before everyone 
gets all giddy about all this extra cash, however, we had really better 
take a closer look.
  Alan Sloan, the Wall Street editor of Newsweek, recently wrote in the 
Washington Post, ``But get a grip. There is no surplus. If you do math 
the normal way, instead of Uncle Sam's way, there is nothing resembling 
a budget surplus on the horizon.'' Mr. Sloan wrote that all the talk 
about a surplus comes because we are using Federal budget accounting 
instead of real world accounting.
  As he pointed out, ``Virtually the entire difference between Federal 
math and real-world math involves Social Security's retirement and 
disability funds, whose surpluses are masking the deficit in the rest 
of the budget.''
  If we were not using the Social Security and many other trust funds 
to offset or mask the size of the deficit, we would still have a huge 
deficit on top of an already horrendous $5.5 trillion national debt.
  Mr. Speaker, before we begin celebrating and spending our supposed, 
alleged surplus, we had better make sure that we really have one. We 
are very far from it right now.

                          ____________________