With the state enjoying a surplus, currently estimated at $143.6 million, proposals to cut taxes or to eliminate the 7.5 percent state sales tax from various items are popular this session.

Democrats are trying to draw attention to the disappearance of surpluses, once estimated to grow as high as $5.6 trillion over the decade.

Though the state is also ending the current year with a surplus, estimated at $1.5 billion, it faces a deficit next year of $2.5 billion and more than $5 billion the year after.

Instead, it salts away the surplus, estimated at $625 million, to finance tax cuts enacted in previous years but yet to take full effect, as well as to pay off the state's huge debt.

But Michael Marr, a spokesman for the State Division of the Budget, said the surplus estimated by the comptroller "is just plain wrong."

Last year two-way trade in goods and services totaled more than $150 billion, with a Canadian surplus estimated by Ottawa at $4.1 billion.

Those two actions helped the city end the current fiscal year with a surplus now estimated at $1.5 billion, which will be used to balance the coming fiscal year's budget.

The state finished the year with a surplus tentatively estimated at $483 million, although some state officials believe the number will grow even higher after a final accounting.

The surplus outside of Social Security, already estimated at between $750 billion and $2 trillion, is expected to grow by a trillion more dollars.

The discounts, estimated to cost $50 million, arise from an unexpected one-time surplus estimated at $700 million.