CBO Offering Up Less Than Rosy Budget Estimates
LOU WATERS, CNN ANCHOR: From Capitol Hill, the Congressional Budget Office offering up some estimates that are a bit less optimistic than the ones we heard last week from the White House. The CBO predicts the Bush administration will be forced to break its own promise not to touch the Social Security trust fund before the fiscal year is out. The CBO says tax cuts and a sour economy have created a non-Social Security deficit of $9 billion. Those new numbers are certain to set off political aftershocks. Joining us now with more from Crawford, Texas, where he is with the vacationing president is senior White House correspondent John King. What do these the numbers mean, John?</s>JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, they mean more intensity to the already intense budget battle that will greet the president and the Congress when they return from their August vacation. As you mentioned, the CBO numbers which come from congressional sources, both Democratic and Republican project the government tapping into Social Security funds for billion this year. The White House disputes that. Last week, the White House Office of Management and Budget put out projections of its own, which said there will be a very modest $1 billion dollar surplus when all the Social Security money i set aside. Now in the end, this really doesn't affect the budget. It doesn't effect Social Security benefits. Andy money taken out of Social Security, if that happened, would be credited to the account, but this is a big political debate. In the booming surpluses in the final years of the Clinton administration, both parties and candidate George W. Bush promised not to touch the Social Security money when they were paying the government's general bills, thing like education, health care and national defense. So more than anything else, this now part of political debate that will the president when he comes back and makes the case that this is all right. Washington just needs to restrain its spending, and the Democrats say the Bush tax cut too big, and the president left the government with too little to spend on key things, like education and health care.</s>WATERS: John, because you say this is a political debate, the question is, who do we trust? As far as Democrats saying that the Bush administration may be raiding the Social Security trust fund, that's not quite true, is it?</s>KING: Well, it's tough to say, who do we trust. Now the government routinely tapped into the Social Security trust funds in the earlier Bush administration, even early in the Clinton administration. It was only in the big surplus years, near the end of Clinton administration, that there was enough money in Washington that the politician thought it was safe to wall off Social Security. It was a pretty appealing political promise. Now that the economy has slowed, there is a debate. And as for who do we trust, remember, the government takes in more than $2 trillion a year, about $2.2 trillion a year. It spends about 2 trillion of that. So the fact that the OMB on the one hand, and the CBO on the other hand, those two agencies. One aligned with the White House, one with the Congress, are about $10 billion apart when it comes to projected. Remember, these are estimates, projected government spending. Most accounts would actually tell you, that's pretty close. Those estimates are pretty close to one another. Who do we trust? We'll have a debate about that, September, October, as the Congress debates the budget.</s>WATERS: It's a difficult story to keep track of. That's why we have senior White House correspondent John King keeping track for us. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com