Pete Domenici: “yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released its preliminary analysis of the President's fiscal year 1999 Budget.…”

“yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released its preliminary analysis of the President's fiscal year 1999 Budget. Very briefly, according to the CBO analysis, the President's budget proposal would spend $43 billion of the federal surplus rather than save the money for social security as the President admonished us in his State of the Union Address. This results from the fact that the CBO analysts found that his new proposed spending of nearly $120 billion over the next 5 years exceeds his proposed spending cuts and tax increases of $43 billion. In other words, if Congress did nothing but abide by the agreement we reached last year, the surpluses projected by CBO would be $43 billion higher than if we adopted the President's budget proposal. But that won't even be possible, because under the Budget Act, the President's budget could not even be considered on the floor of the Senate, because it would be out of order. The President's budget violates the agreement reached last year by proposing to break the statutory spending caps by $68 billion, making it out of order in the U.S. Senate. Further, CBO found that the President's budget dips us back into deficit in the year 2000. This is disappointing. But even if the administration proposes to break our agreement from last year, I do not.…”