When white house budget director Mitchell Daniels testified before the Senate Budget Committee this spring, he brought along a plump apple pie-an apt symbol for the government's bountiful budget surplus, then estimated at some $275 billion. But when Daniels appeared before the panel last week, his estimate of the spare cash fell as low as $160 billion. The committee's new Democratic chairman, Kent Conrad, served some baked goods too. He gave Daniels a modest pear tart with the words "shrinking surplus" inscribed in frosting.
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