Still, if the Sahel has a surplus of anything, it's manual laborers.
One estimate, by the National Taxpayers Union, puts the dollar size of Mr. Gore's new spending at more than $2 trillion over 10 years -- enough to take up the entire non-Social Security surplus without anything left over for tax cuts.
And Clinton has ruled out using a future budget surplus for anything but shoring up Social Security.
But the comptroller, Frederick E. Parola, stressed that the surplus was hardly anything to celebrate because the county was still spending more money than it had and was facing a deficit this year of $100 million to $125 million.
Anything surplus to requirements, too badly damaged or too expensive to transport could be given away, sold on or scrapped locally.
Senator Kent Conrad, the North Dakota Democrat who is chairman of the Budget Committee, said the budget squeeze was a direct result of Mr. Bush's tax cut, which he said was sold on the basis that last year's surplus projections were, if anything, too pessimistic.
After taking into account $300 billion to $400 billion in additional interest costs the government would face if the surplus were used for anything other than reducing the national debt, they said, Mr. Bush's tax plan would leave little or nothing for initiatives like providing prescription drug coverage to retirees and increasing spending on education.
Imagine an LCD surface of cumulative life course consumptive surplus or deficit, or anything else that might vary by lifespan and moment of birth or death, such as children ever born, years of retirement, the size of trees or other aspects of forestry, populations of buildings in large cities, and so forth.
"Anything which was surplus to that I wanted to try and do something with it.
But Lagarde wants Syriza to adopt her policies of austerity to create a budget surplus and refuses to accept anything less.
