Washington — In the budget he unveiled Wednesday, President Bush offers Americans almost everything they could possibly want in a federal spending plan a big tax cut, major debt reduction, new spending programs and money to spare.
Can he deliver?
The president says he can. Key to his confidence is a $1.4 trillion reserve that budget documents say would be left to cover "additional needs, debt service and contingencies" after everything else had been paid for.
But a close look at the reserve shows that well over half and perhaps all of it is either money that is unlikely to become available, or dollars from sources, such as the Medicare hospital trust fund, that Congress and the voters have specifically said they don't want to touch.
The dicey quality of the reserve figures all but guarantees that the political fight over the Bush budget will be raucous.
"The reserve is a convenient illusion," said Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal group whose budget research commands wide respect. "The reality is the numbers don't add up."
All of this could significantly influence the outcome in Congress of Bush's proposed tax cut. Recent polls show that a large number of voters doubt the nation needs or can afford a big tax cut. Analysts say that only if Bush can show that the money for a cut is there with plenty to spare will he be able to rally support for his plan.
The White House itself was cautious Wednesday about the size of the reserve fund, which would be available to cover extra costs over the next 10 years.
In its budget document, the administration described the fund as an "unprecedented $1.4 trillion reserve." But in his public comments during the day, Bush immediately reduced the figure to $1 trillion.
"Like any wise person who cares about budgets, we ought to set some (money) aside for contingencies," he told an Omaha, Neb., audience. "So we set aside a trillion dollars."
The $400 billion difference is the administration's estimate of the additional interest that it will owe because of paying off the national debt more slowly than the recently departed Clinton White House had proposed.
But what of the remaining $1 trillion? Administration officials say that amount is free of any strings and available to meet new demands. "It's not pre-committed," said Lawrence Lindsey, Bush's closest economic adviser and head of the White House's National Economic Council. "What we're saying is that things change, and we're leaving money to take that into account."
But for every possible adjustment in the administration's favor, there are others that appear likely to drain the reserve. For example:
l Agricultural payments: The administration assumes that government payments to farmers will drop by almost $12 billion a year by 2006. But many lawmakers, including farm-state Republicans, doubt that such a reduction will occur. Additional costs to the reserve: $50 billion to $100 billion.
l Defense: While Bush has said he wants to build a new missile defense system and substantially boost the military budget, he has delayed putting a price tag on his proposals until completion of a full-scale review of Pentagon spending. While the Bush budget unveiled Wednesday proposes a moderate increase for next year, it shows only tiny increases thereafter something that virtually all observers predict will change. Additional costs to the reserve: hundred of billions of dollars.
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