Less than a month after President Bush signed his trillion-dollar tax cut into law, taxpayers are eagerly anticipating rebate checks from their Uncle Sam. The tax cut may sound attractive, but its effect on the federal budget and projected surpluses will not look so great down the road.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the White House's Office of Management and Budget offer different projections on how the tax cut will affect the federal budget. Along those lines, Congressional Democrats and Republicans differ on how much money will be needed from Social Security, if any, to pay for new spending and the tax cut.

The $1.35 trillion tax cut, which some say will cost $1.8 trillion, contains tax law changes that will take a massive bite out of the surplus pie.

Sixty-seven percent of the total revenues that will be lost because of the tax cut will be lost between 2006 and 2011. The CBO often admits that ten-year projections on surpluses and other dynamics of the budget are uncertain, especially in the later part of those ten years.

While both parties say that the Social Security trust fund (about $2.5 trillion over ten years) is untouchable, Republicans say they are willing to tap into the $400 billion Medicare surplus to pay for a new $300 billion Medicare prescription drug benefit, which Democrats oppose.

Lawmakers are already feeling the tax cut's crunch as they begin to work on this year's spending bills.

President Bush hopes to cap discretionary spending at $661 billion for fiscal year 2002, which is already a four percent increase over last year. However, with the president's education package, expected increases in defense spending and the current congressional spending splurge, it is inevitable that Congress will throw this proposed budget in the trash. At the very least, money will be taken from Social Security to make up the difference.

Some lawmakers argue that they have already set aside $841 billion in a contingency reserve and will not need to ask for additional money for emergency spending. But that fund is drawn from Social Security money and should be off limits if Capitol Hill rhetoric is to be believed.

With an election year right around the corner, lawmakers will face political heat to bring federal tax dollars back to their home districts. But the president's tax cut has taken considerable power away from spending addicts in Congress.

Lawmakers have pledged not to dip into the Social Security trust fund, but it is only a matter of time until they do so. If the economy continues to stay in neutral and surplus projections diminish, then the money has to come from somewhere else. Unfortunately, the prime target will be Social Security, the next generation's piggy bank.