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.
