August 23, 2001 -- The Office of Management and Budget, the White House agency that oversees government spending, released new and gloomier forecasts of the nation's economic health. Excepting Social Security, there will be no significant surplus until 2004.
Should the economic decline continue, the administration faces a dilemma: Either scale back on increases to the DoD budget, as some in Congress are proposing, or ask Congress to remove the prohibition against using Social Security surpluses for anything except Social Security or reducing the national debt.
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