surplus

The federal surpluses for the last several years surprised many students of budgeting.

To be sure, with the burgeoning federal surpluses, fiscal policy has not yet been unduly compromised by such actions.

The projected federal surpluses enable a new administration to cut taxes and spend at the same time (unlike the Clinton administration in 1993, which faced staggering deficits and paid an enormous price in 1994 for raising taxes).

Reich suggested that current federal surpluses might allow a revisiting of some form of universal health care, possibly modeled on the government benefits plan used by Congress.

But despite record federal surpluses, no one in political or business circles will even entertain discussion of returning to the pre-1992 rules for jobless benefits.

He pushed through Congress a massive tax cut that overtly favors the rich and which, along with the recession and the war on terrorism, has turned the federal surpluses he inherited into deficits.

Federal surpluses have come as a pleasant surprise, but using them to finance additional government spending would be disastrous.

We must not cut taxes, they insisted piously, we must instead use the burgeoning federal surpluses to pay off the national debt.