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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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082189
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08218900.012
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1990-09-19
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BUSINESS, Page 46Out of Sight, Out of MindThe S & L bailout looks bold, but it hides the full costs
"With this bill's substantial funding, we will begin, here and
now, to eliminate the ongoing losses of the insolvent firms . . .
I'm proud to sign this monster." So said President Bush last week
as he stamped into law his long-awaited and much debated
savings-and-loan bailout bill. The legislation, which will rescue
ailing thrifts at a cost estimated at $300 billion over the next
30 years, promises to transform the S & L business into a far
smaller -- and potentially stronger -- industry. The law will also
impose a sweeping reorganization on the Government's thrift
regulators: the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, now independent, will
become a Treasury Department agency called the Office of Thrift
Supervision.
While the bailout has bold ambitions, its financing is based
on a dismaying kind of budgetary sleight of hand that hides the
real cost from taxpayers. Of the $50 billion that the Government
will spend on the bailout in this fiscal year, $30 billion will be
borrowed through bond sales and will be considered "off budget."
It will not be counted as Government spending and will not
exacerbate this year's federal deficit. The remaining $20 billion
will be in the budget, but slipped in through a loophole in the
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law, so that the spending will not push the
fiscal '89 deficit over the statutory limits and trigger automatic
budget cuts. As a result, the '89 deficit will grow to about $168
billion, $30 billion over the target.
Congressional Democrats wanted to put the full $50 billion in
the budget, but Republicans balked, accusing the Democrats of
attempting to embarrass the Administration by overstating the
bailout's immediate price tag. Putting $30 billion off budget,
however, will increase the eventual cost of this year's bailout
expenditures by an estimated $3 billion over the next three
decades. That is because the off-budget money will have to be
borrowed by the Resolution Funding Corporation, the Government
agency responsible for restructuring the thrift industry, which
will have to pay investors higher interest rates than the Treasury
pays for on-budget borrowing. As a result, the S & L rescue's first
installment is a case of bail now, pay later.