Promise Them The Moon
New figures show the U.S. economy was growing in the just-ended third quarter at an annual rate of 2.7 percent – less than half the rate of the red-hot second quarter.
Even so, reports CBS News Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts, there has been no slowdown in the rate of high-cost promise-making by the presidential candidates.
On the campaign trail, locked in the tightest of races, both Al Gore and George W. Bush continue to promise voters the moon.
"You elect me president and I'll give all seniors a prescription drug benefit," said Gore.
"You earned it, its your money," said Bush. "And some of it, after we meet our priorities, needs to come back. And here's what we are going to do."
With each surplus projection more optimistic than the one before, Bush and Gore are throwing around money in dizzying amounts.
But far away from the presidential race, on Capitol Hill and at the White House, Democrats and Republicans are locked in a budget battle for pet projects using that same money.
"There are hundreds, literally hundreds of projects that the members wanted that I did not support," said President Clinton. "They cut back on the investment on some things that I support."
All that spending is eating into the surplus. If it keeps up, says the bipartisan Concord Coalition, those magnificent projections could shrink by as much as 60 percent.
"Just what they've done alone this year could reduce the budget surplus anywhere by $800-$900 billion," said the group's Robert Bixby.
What does that mean for the candidates?
Both have based their programs on a projected surplus of $2.2 trillion. Bush has already laid claim to literally every penny. Gore leaves $300 billion in a so-called rainy day fund. At the current annual spending rates, analysts say the surplus could dwindle to as little as $712 billion, leaving both candidates drowning in a sea of red ink, rainy day fund or not.
"I think the candidates have been too quick to assume that the surplus is going to be there," said Bixby, "and they are talking about it as if it were some sort of national lottery pay out."
And that may leave the man who wins the White House with some tough choices - raise taxes, go back to the days of running deficits or renege on some of those remarkable campaign promises - none of which either candidate would even dare talking about in the next 11 days, unless it's to tar the other guy. But analysts remind voters that surplus projections are an imaginary piggy bank, and any promise based on those numbers is fuzzy at best.