After a year of sex, lies and videotape, Monica Lewinsky has moved on to the interview circuit, and Congress has moved on to national business.

Finally.

One of the main issues to be dealt with this year is, of course, the national budget.

For those of you who have been living in a cave this past year, federal revenues exceeded spending in the fiscal year of 1998 by $70 billion.

This is the first time the United States hasn’t been in the red since 1969.

According to its Web site, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates under current tax laws that the total budget surplus will reach $107 billion in fiscal 1999 and $131 billion in fiscal 2000.

So to no one’s surprise, the Republicans in Congress have dusted off the old playbook and are setting up an offense for an across-the-board 10 percent tax cut.

You may think a tax cut won’t really affect us too much. After all, we’re just making six bucks an hour.

But what our congresspeople do now will directly affect us 10 to 20 years down the road when we’re raking it in.

So it’s important to understand how asinine the Republican plan really is.

First of all, Republicans are running all over the country preaching to the choir about how they want to give us back the surplus.

The word surplus should never be used in the same sentence as these extra revenues. Our nation is still $3.72 trillion in debt; it’s time to start balancing the books.

Our debt is like a leech to the national economy. It caused us to pay $243 billion in interest last year alone, according to the CBO Web site. Believe it or not, things have been worse.

Back in 1992, we were paying a quarter on every tax dollar just to pay off the interest on the debt. Currently, it’s down to 13 cents.

According to the whitehouse .gov.com Web site, President Clinton wants to take it down to 7 cents so that 15 years down the road, we will only be paying two pennies on every tax dollar toward the interest on our debt.

“This will be the lowest portion of the GDP since 1917,” said U.S. Senator Tom Harkin.

Secondly, these projected excess revenues are banking on the assumption that the economy will run smoothly in the future.

That’s a careless and reckless assumption for Republican leaders to make.

I know they’ve been busy with some court case or something, but pick up a newspaper, guys; there’s a lot going on out there.

With worsening global economies wreaking havoc on countries all over the world, the demand for U.S. exports just might fall a little bit. In fact, the CBO, among others, is already predicting a moderate slow-down in the economy over the next two years.

The third reason the nation can’t afford a big tax cut right now is something most economics majors learn their first semester.

“According to macroeconomic theory, this is the worst possible time for a tax cut,” said Roy Adams, Iowa State professor of economics.

Adams explained that in periods of great prosperity, a government should use extra revenues to pay down the debt.

“If taxes were cut now, we risk another round of inflation,” he said.

So let’s talk about this plan. As Harkin said, “The devil is in the details.”

According to him, their plan would give 60 percent of the benefits to the top 10 percent of income earners and only give 10 percent of the benefits to the lower 60 percent of income earners.

“The Republican proposal means a pizza a month for American families making under $38,000 (the bottom 60 percent of taxpayers) and a new car for the average taxpayer making over $300,000,” he continued.

The gist of it is, those who need a tax break aren’t going to gain any substantial footing from this cut.

In a recent CNN interview, Trent Lott said he “will not tolerate a Republican not voting for the 10 percent cut.”

We should be understanding. Anyone who read the Starr report as much as he did couldn’t possibly be right in the head.

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Sarah Leonard is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Lawler.