Democrat Budget Proposals Would

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March 15, 2002For Additional
Information Contact Neil Bradley
Democrat Budget Proposals Would Raid Social
Security Democrats have recently
charged that the policies enacted by President
Bush and Republicans in Congress are to blame for
the raid on the Social Security Trust Fund. In
particular, Democrats argue that the tax relief
measure signed into law last year is to blame.
In order to evaluate this claim, the RSC has
analyzed the three budgets offered by Democrat
House Members last year the Progressive Caucus
Budget, the Blue Dog Budget, and the Democratic
Caucus Budget. In order to evaluate the
impact of policy priorities on the surplus, the
RSC assumed that each of the proposed budgets was
enacted and strictly followed. Then the Budget
was adjusted to reflect the changes in the
surplus caused by economic and technical factors
and the spending resulting from the September
11th Terrorist Attacks. This process isolates
the policy proposals in each budget and
demonstrates what the surplus or deficit would be
under each of the Democratic Budget proposals.
As the chart on the following page
demonstrates, all three of the Democratic Budget
proposals would have resulted in on-budget
deficits in Fiscal Year 2002 and 2003. In other
words, each proposal (and the Democrat policies
embedded in each proposal) would have resulted in
a raid on the Social Security Trust Fund.
In addition, the RSC has included a chart
indicating how Members of the Democratic Caucus
voted on each Democrat Budget Proposal.
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Progressive Caucus Budget
Blue Dog Budget
Democrat Caucus Budget
1 H.Rpt. 107-30 2 Congressional Budget Office
January 2002 3 Office of Management and Budget