The budget resolution approved last week by the Senate Budget Committee has nothing good to recommend it. It will hand more tax breaks to the extremely wealthy while slashing assistance to low-income working families and children. Funds for education, housing, the environment and a host of other services that benefit ordinary Americans will also be cut. Ironically, in spite of all these cuts, the committee?s resolution will increase -- not reduce -- the deficit.

Conference negotiations to reconcile the tax cuts bills passed by the House and Senate are expected to begin tomorrow, and Congress hopes to pass a tax cut bill by the Memorial Day recess, although this may prove impossible.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released the final version of its March 7 report, entitled “An Analysis of the President’s Budgetary Proposals for Fiscal Year 2004.” The revised version of this report was eagerly awaited for its special section on the “Potential Macroeconomic Effects of the President’s Budgetary Proposals.” A macroeconomic – or “dynamic” – evaluation has never been offered by CBO, and both proponents and critics of the controversial scoring method were anxious to learn what the CBO report would reveal. For many, it seems that the long-awaited results were disappointing in their ambiguity.