Clinton announces $230 billion budget surplus

President Clinton announced Wednesday that this year's unified budget surplus had grown to $230 billion, the largest ever. At 2.4 percent of gross domestic product, the fiscal year 2000 surplus is the biggest in real terms since 1948. Excluding the surplus in the Social Security account, the on-budget surplus amounts to $80 billion. In June, the administration had projected a $211 billion unified fiscal year 2000 budget surplus. The CBO's final estimate for fiscal year 2000 was a $232 billion unified surplus, with an $84 billion on-budget surplus. That number had increased from the CBO's April estimate of a $179 billion unified surplus. Clinton called on Congress to temper its "spending spree," but indicated his chief concern is that Congress is not funding and passing his priorities. And, asked if he would reject bills that exceeded his budget request, Clinton was not definitive. "In terms of whether I would veto one, it depends on how much extra money they spend in the end and what it looks like," he told reporters at the White House. The CBO's current estimate of the fiscal year 2001 budget surplus is $268 billion. Clinton aides said they are ambivalent about how many fiscal year 2001 appropriations measures the White House is willing to consider at once, a different stance from last year, when they insisted on seeing "the whole picture" and sought to avoid signing measures piecemeal. White House officials believe they have a better sense of how the measures add up this year. "If they send us a good bill on any given day, we will sign it," a senior Clinton aide said, although he added it was important to know "how action on one bill will impact every other bill." However, White House officials expressed a preference for linking various tax measures together, as Republicans now seem more inclined to do. And asked by a reporter whether his demand for legislation expanding the definition of hate crimes was "non-negotiable," Clinton declined to say. Instead, he said he "wouldn't give up yet" and accused Republicans of not wanting the bill because "they think it will split their base, or something."