THE BUDGET: A $9 Billion Shortfall

When the Federal Government began balancing its checkbook, it discovered something that would have delighted any consumer in the same position: $11.5 billion that was supposed to have been spent this year on Government programs had not been spent. Baffled by the shortfall, Office of Management and Budget officials double-checked their figures and found that $2.5 billion of it was due mainly to accounting quirks That still left $9 billion in unused money and provided ammunition for Columnist Art Buchwald. Plotkin, his fictional, frazzled OMB bureaucrat, worries about how to get rid of the excess money and asks, "Have you...

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