The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released the final version of its March 7 report, entitled “An Analysis of the President’s Budgetary Proposals for Fiscal Year 2004.” The revised version of this report was eagerly awaited for its special section on the “Potential Macroeconomic Effects of the President’s Budgetary Proposals.” A macroeconomic – or “dynamic” – evaluation has never been offered by CBO, and both proponents and critics of the controversial scoring method were anxious to learn what the CBO report would reveal. For many, it seems that the long-awaited results were disappointing in their ambiguity.

As discussed in newspapers across the country, support for preserving the President's costly $726 billion tax cut package (misnamed the "Growth Package") is weakening. On March 25, the Senate voted to shrink the $726 billion package down to $350 billion. (In an earlier vote, the House passed the full $726 billion tax cut - and more than $260 billion in cuts to veterans' assistance, Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps and other programs - in a very close vote, 215-212.)