October 27,1999

Roth: 1999 Budget Surplus is Thanks to GOP Congress's Spending Discipline

WASHINGTON -- Senate Finance Committee Chairman William V. Roth, Jr. (R-DE) today released the following statement regarding the Office of Management and Budget's new federal budget surplus numbers. OMB today said that the federal budget surplus for FY 99 is $122.7 billion, compared to the $79 billion that had been forecast by the government agency in February of this year.

"Thanks to Republicans holding the line on spending for the past several years, we now officially have the second year of federal budget surpluses. It is not just a coincidence that since Republicans took over the Congressional reins in 1995, the federal budget deficits have shrunk and now disappeared. Republicans have led the way on restraining big government wasteful spending, and this surplus is the direct result of that fiscal restraint."