House Speaker: Don't let agencies spend surplus

House Speaker Denny Hastert, R-Ill., announced Wednesday he has directed House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, to include in this year's budget resolution a plan to retire the nation's publicly held debt by 2015.

According to its most recent estimate, the Congressional Budget Office projected the public debt would come in at $3.62 trillion for fiscal 1999 and $3.47 trillion for fiscal 2000, and would continue going through 2009, the last year covered in the CBO's July budget forecast.

Over the same period, the CBO projected the federal budget would run growing surpluses both in the Social Security trust funds and without counting Social Security revenues. As long as Congress continues to balance the federal budget without using Social Security surpluses, the excess Social Security funds not used to pay beneficiaries are automatically used to buy down the public debt.

The CBO's updated economic forecast, due out next week, is widely expected to show even higher surpluses than the July report-and therefore even lower public debt projections. That means Congress may have to do little more than stay out of the Social Security trust funds to ensure the public debt is zeroed out in 15 years.

But GOP budget sources said to make sure Congress exercises fiscal discipline, they want to create a mechanism that-if the president vetoes the GOP tax cut plan-any funds from the non-Social Security surplus intended for tax relief go to paying down the debt rather than higher discretionary spending.

In prepared remarks Hastert delivered at an event in Albuquerque with Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., Hastert called on President Clinton to "join us in seizing this incredible opportunity. This is not the time to push our government into expensive, new programs that will put this goal in jeopardy."