The Austrian exchequer was to receive between 3 to 6 percent of its annual surplus.

Nonetheless, under the budget law, the annual surplus can be counted to offset the deficit.

The contractor even promised that the completed system would generate an $8.5 million annual surplus for the state.

Even the current short-term annual surpluses are not saved and invested.

Perhaps most distressing for the Pataki administration, however, is the loss of the annual surplus.

It has an annual financial surplus of more than $2 billion.

The government is running annual surpluses of above 2%.

Should the tolls continue, the authority might have an annual surplus of $80 million.

All this is a far cry from the mid-1980's, when annual surpluses prompted tax reductions.

The annual surpluses that set the nation on this course emerged in the final years of the Clinton administration.