REALISTIC CUTTING

There has been real progress on plans to reduce the rate of growth of planned federal spending increases and so to balance the budget. The Republican House-Senate version claims to get us to a balance within seven years. Too fast, says President Bill Clinton, who has rolled out a plan that he says will get us to balance in 10 years. It is heartening that a key result of the elections of 1994 is that the debate has moved to when, not whether, to achieve a balanced budget and to stop piling up debt for future generations.

In any such calculations, where we are talking about annual budgets in the $1.6 trillion range, an important cautionary note should be sounded. The conjuring necessary to produce budgetary forecasts even for next year is sufficiently problematical. For budgetary "out-years" three, four, five, seven and 10 years off, exact accuracy is nearly impossible. A myriad of imponderables -- floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, wars and recessions come to mind -- can effect budgetary outlays, by the tens of billions, in unforeseeable ways.

Any such plans should be judged, not by whether exact mathematical accuracy to the last billions in expenditure are achieved in year seven, but by whether real, sustained progress is made toward the goal of budgetary balance. If, in 2002, we're $50 or $100 billion off projections, but substantial progress is apparent in the long budgetary battle, it will be an occasion for real celebration -- and for redoubling our efforts. For the spenders, like the poor, will always be with us.