Budgetary Outlook at Mid-Year 1970

Nancy H. Teeters

NHT

Nancy H. Teeters The Brookings Institution

THE FEDERAL BUDGETARY POSITION has exhibited over the past two years the most dramatic shifts in the postwar period. The budget calculated at full employment swung from a deficit of $13½ billion in mid-1968 to a surplus of $10½ billion in mid-1969 and returned to a minor deficit by mid-1970, as shown in Table 1. If the administration is able to hold total expenditures to levels discussed last spring, the budgetary position would again be reversed and a full employment surplus of $16 billion would be in evidence by mid-1971. A number of proposals currently being considered in Congress would, however, make realization of the official estimates not only difficult, but probably impossible.