The size of the projected budget surplus has become a political football, and a highly misleading one. Beneath the partisan jockeying, some fundamental public questions are getting lost.
Republican candidates use the larger surplus projections to justify massive tax cuts.
For tactical reasons, the Democrats say the surplus may not be as large as the Republicans think it is, so we really can't afford a big tax cut after all. Unfortunately, tactics are getting confused with major policy choices. And now some nominally Democratic economists have waded into the fray to virtually define the surplus out of existence. Robert Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who now heads the Urban Institute, is a leading Democratic deficit hawk. As CBO chief, Reischauer became convinced that Congress was congenitally incapable of balancing the budget.