The Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Has
Finally Been Passed and Signed
An Update to the Present Outlok
(6/6/25)-We at TheRubins will now update this article to write about how the present “Big Beautiful Spending” budget bill pending legislation now pending before the Senate looks according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The pending bill will increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion over the next decade.according to the CBO compared to doing nothing.
(11/20/99)- The Year 2000 budget crisis is over. President Clinton signed the last piece of legislation needed to complete the Year 2000 budget on Monday, November 29th, 1999. The passage took place almost 2 months later than when it was due.
According to the figures of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office the Year 2000 budget drew down $17 billion from the Social Security surplus. The Office estimates that unless Congress cuts spending for the Year 2001 budget it will draw down $19 billion from the Social Security surplus.
The final spending bill earmarked $1.3 billion for a 7-year plan to hire 100,000 additional public-school teachers with the avowed purpose of helping to reduce classroom sizes. It provided for the payment of $926 million for our past due U.N. bill. $595 million will go towards a program to hire 50,000 community police officers by the year 2005. About $1.8 billion will go towards helping to implement the Wye River, Md. Middle East peace agreement. This will be the last of our articles on this topic. We will keep this article posted for about 1 month and then remove it from the site. We will keep it available in our own files, so that if you are interested in getting a copy of it at some later date please send us an e-mail requesting same and we will forward it to you.
A 6th "continuing resolution" was passed and signed by the President allowing the government to keep operating through December 2, 1999. Congress has passed a $391 billion spending package combining all 5 areas of spending that had been left open into 1 spending bill.
The Republicans, the Democrats and the President are close to a final agreement on most of the issues remaining unresolved in the 4 vetoed spending bills. The 5th spending bill that was vetoed concerns the operations of Washington, D.C. and is not a major stumbling block. The negotiations will continue throughout the ensuing week and hopefully they will arrive at a completed and signed budget by this next deadline
Once the budget is passed the Republicans will then claim they met their promise not to borrow from Social Security funds to help balance the budget. The Democrats and the President will get an increase of funding for new teachers. Moneys will be appropriated for additional policemen. Some moneys will be appropriated to pay down our past due UN bill. Some of the "pork" in the spending will be deleted. Some of the environmental concerns will be removed (such as strip mining) from the bills. Everybody will declare victory. As this article goes on to explain in reality it will be only through gimmickry that the requirements of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 will be met. Additional funding will be allocated for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Both the Republican and Democratic Parties understand that the people do not want the government to be shut down as a result of the budget crisis as happened in 1995. The Republicans were blamed for that shut down but the Democrats and President Clinton understand that they may be blamed for any shutdown that may occur as a result of our present budget crisis.
First let us take a look at the facts. The U.S. Government operates on a fiscal year basis, with the new year beginning October 1, 1999 and running through September 30, 2000. The Year 2000 budget was supposed to be in place by September 30, 1999. Since this did not occur on time this year the government has continued to operate on "continuing resolutions" that must be passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton. We are presently operating on the 4th"continuing resolution" passed and signed that will carry us through November 17th,1999. There are a total of 13 separate "spending resolutions" that when taken together compose the budget. The scoreboard for these 13 spending bills reads as follows: 8 have been passed and signed by the president and he has vetoed 5. Amongst the 5 vetoed spending bills 1 covers Washington, DC and the other 4 cover the 7 cabinet departments and the entire foreign-aid budget (including a measure to contribute a portion of the money we owe in back dues to the UN). These 4 bills are the ones that are causing the difficulty in arriving at the Year 2000 budget.
One of the measures in dispute involves the Department of Labor, Health, and Human Services and Education. The Department of Health and Human Services is the agency most involved with matters of critical importance to the elderly. This is why we have been devoting so much space recently to the budgetary crisis.
Under the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 no additional spending can occur in one area without having an offsetting compensatory cut back in another area. The limit on spending for 2000 has been set at $594 billion. Any spending above this amount would have to come from borrowing from Social Security funds.
As we all know however, when Congress is involved there are rules and there are exceptions. One of the exceptions arises from what is called "emergency spending". "Emergency spending" items need not be included in calculating ordinary expenditures, so these items are not included as expenses for budgetary purposes. Thus by calling some items "emergency expenditures" Congress can, and has circumvented the rules of the BBA of 1997. So far this year Congress has allocated some $ 18.6 billion as "emergency spending". Another gimmick that Congress and the president use is to spend the money in October 2000 or later. If spent after September 30, 2000 the money is not charged to the Year 2000 budget. So far about $4.3 billion is swept under the rug by this gimmick. Another technique involves what is called "directed scorekeeping". There is basically 2 set of books kept in connection with government expenditures. One is the Office of Management and Budget (Executive Branch) and the other is the Congressional Budget Office (Congressional Branch). The CBO is supposed to be independent but in reality Congress instructs them how to compute certain items. Thus if it is beneficial to use the CBO numbers they will use the CBO numbers. If it is beneficial to use the OMB numbers they will use the OMB numbers. Furthermore if it is beneficial they will mix and match both books.
At last count it is estimated that the balanced budget relies on at least $43 billion in creative accounting. The CBO estimates that the Republican budget will result in about $611 billion in spending in 2000. Since the limit is supposed to be $594 billion this is $17 billion over limit. By cutting about 1% across the board the total comes to $605 billion, which is still $12 billion over limit. To make up the balance they will have to borrow from Social Security.
The president said he would not sign the financing measure for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and education unless financing for 100,000 new teachers in public schools is added to the $85 billion bill. He stated he would not sign the $37 billion bill for the Commerce, Justice and State Departments unless it includes money for 50,000 more police officers and an amount for the United Nations dues are included. All of the spending bills contain plenty of "pork". The president said he would not sign the Interior Department bill unless certain riders attached therein are removed.
As we get nearer and nearer to the November 17th deadline these above items will be negotiated so that a shut down will be averted. It may require one more week of operating under another "continuing resolution", but a budget will be arrived at. Both sides will say, "they won". They will also state that they will not have to "borrow from Social Security". The truth of the matter is that the budget will have been balanced only through a process using "creative accounting".
The final figures are in for the 1999 fiscal year budget. It shows that the federal government ended the year with a $122.7 billion surplus. This was the second year in a row of surplus since 1998 ended with a $69.8 billion surplus. If the government had not borrowed from Social Security in 1999 it would have run a $1 billion deficit. The government also announced that they had lowered the national debt by $138 billion in the last 2 years to $3.6 trillion.
We who live in New York State know by now that our politicians think they have every right to pass the budget as late as they think possible, and get no reaction from the electorate. Are our federal elected officials beginning to think along the same lines?
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By Allan Rubin
Updated June 6, 2025
http://www.therubins.com
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