Clinton offers budget challenge to Bush administration

The Clinton administration on Tuesday released a final assessment of its economic policies--and a comparison with the incoming Bush administration's first budget proposal--that touts President Clinton's economic legacy and provides projections for fiscal year 2002. In his message accompanying the new Office of Management and Budget report, Clinton wrote: "Over the last eight years, I have sought to provide the fiscal discipline necessary to ensure the continuing growth of our economy while making essential investments in the future of our people ... I present this document with pride in our accomplishments, and hope that this progress will continue and grow for all Americans." With an eye to the future, Clinton said, "The challenge, in this era of surplus, is to make balanced choices to use our resources to meet both the evident, pressing needs of today, and the more distant, but no less crucial, needs of generations to come." The document is based on the same economic assumptions that underlie the OMB's November surplus figures and contains no new budget policy proposals. Instead, it projects the cost of keeping the federal government operating and providing the same level of services in fiscal 2002 as it did in fiscal 2001, adjusted for inflation. It again projects a unified fiscal year 2001 budget surplus of $256 billion and projects a $277 billion unified surplus for fiscal year 2002. It also predicts that, to keep pace with inflation, total discretionary spending by the federal government would have to jump from $654 billion in the current fiscal year to $681.5 billion in fiscal year 2002. The report analyzes the costs of several Clinton administration proposals still pending, including Social Security and Medicare lockboxes, a Medicare prescription drug benefit, increased benefits for legal immigrants, the Family Opportunity Act to provide healthcare for families of children with disabilities, class size reduction, school construction and modernization, as well as a minimum wage increase.