No One Knows How to Spend Extra Money

I have lived through three fiscal crises--a federal budget deficit, a balanced budget and now a budget surplus. None of them has been any fun.

When I was young, politicians, presidents and economists used to talk about budget deficits all the time. We were spending more money than we were taking in.

Members of Congress always blamed the other side for the deficit but refuse to give credit when we have a surplus.

The answer to a deficit was more taxes. The Republicans hated the budget deficit and said we were giving money to people overseas and those on relief and mothers who were having too many children. They declared that because of our deficit we are lazy and on the dole.

Somewhere along the way we suddenly balanced the budget. Both the Republicans and Democrats took credit for it. The problem was no one had seen a balanced budget before, so it was impossible to believe that we really had one.

Then, under President Clinton we had a surplus of billions of dollars, more money than even Bill Gates has.

Suddenly everyone started fighting over the money. Some wanted to give everybody a tax break of $15.45, except for rich people, who could deduct eight rooms in their apartments and estates. Other people wanted to solve the Social Security problem, and still others wanted to paint Utah a deep purple.

Here are some of the ideas about spending the surplus that have been floating around:

* We give the money to baseball players to supplement their paltry incomes.

* We pay everyone’s Visa and MasterCard bills.

* Everyone in the United States would receive two tickets to the Broadway show “The Lion King.”

And the battle goes on. It’s the same fight people have when they have too much money in the bank. But what I don’t like about it is the way a budget surplus turns Republicans against Democrats.