Balance the Budget?

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Glenn
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Post by Glenn »

Bill Glasheen wrote: Congress - and not the president - controls spending.
Sort of a joint effort really, with the starting point being a president's budget request. Given the way the budgetary process works it makes sense to include presidential terms on the graph as a statement of what occured on a given president's watch, as you often say...not to mention a lot easier than indicating any aspect of Congress on it.
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

United States budget process

The process of creating the budget for the United States Government is known as the budget process. The framework used by Congress to formulate the budget was established by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921[1], the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974[2], and by other budget legislation.

Prior to 1974, Congress had no formal process for establishing a coherent budget. When newly-elected President Richard Nixon began to refuse to spend funds that the Congress had allocated, Congress needed a more formal means by which to challenge him. The Congressional Budget Act created the Congressional Budget Office and directed more control of the budget to CBO and away from the President's Office of Management and the Budget. The Act passed easily as the administration was embroiled in the Watergate scandal and unwilling to provoke Congress.[3]

1) Budget and Accounting Act of 1921
2) Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974
3) Budget Resolution Explainer, Rudolph Penner, Urban Institute
Since the loss of substantive control of spending by the executive branch under Nixon's watch, other presidents have asked for more control via techniques such as "the line item veto." But so far no success. When a turkey comes through Congress and is dumped on the desk of the president, he signs it all or vetoes it all. And then the Congress has the last say-so with their potential power to override a veto (given enough of a majority opinion on a matter).

So when you want to talk about controlling spending, well it pretty much starts and ends in Congress.

The president does have control of the military which has been a major source of spending since 9/11. But again... Congress has the power to de-fund anything they don't like.

That in fact is a tool that newly-elected Republicans have talked about using against ObamaCare if the Supreme Court challenges don't work. It may be very difficult to kill the goose, but they can control the purse strings and effectively strangle various initiatives. Given the trillion dollar price tag, it may become a necessity.

And I hope during this fall's open enrollment period that people learn ObamaCare is not reducing medical costs. It's just the opposite; mandates ALWAYS increase medical costs. And you ain't seen nothing yet.

To be fair and consistent, Reid and Pelosi are responsible for the monstrosity that Obama signed. And interestingly enough, they fashioned SOME of it after the Massachusetts plan that came about under Mitt Romney's tenure. Having experienced the aftereffects of that legislation (my Massachusetts company sent 30 percent of its jobs overseas and converted me to a subcontractor to avoid health insurance costs), I naturally have an opinion on that plan. Don't expect Romney to get far in 2012 because of it.

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Glenn
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Post by Glenn »

Your source focuses on what acts authorize the budgetary process, but does not really cover the process itself.
Policy Basics: Introduction to the Federal Budget Process

Step One: The President’s Budget Request
On or before the first Monday in February, the President submits to Congress a detailed budget request for the coming federal fiscal year, which begins on October 1. (In years where there is a change in administration, the budget is submitted later.) This budget request, developed by the President’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), plays three important roles. First, it tells Congress what the President recommends for overall federal fiscal policy, as established by three main components: (1) how much money the federal government should spend on public purposes; (2) how much it should take in as tax revenues; and (3) how much of a deficit (or surplus) the federal government should run, which is simply the difference between (1) and (2).

Second, the budget request lays out the President’s relative priorities for federal programs — how much he believes should be spent on defense, agriculture, education, health, and so on. The President’s budget is very specific, and recommends funding levels for individual federal programs or small groups of programs called “budget accounts.” The budget typically sketches out fiscal policy and budget priorities not only for the coming year but for the next five years or more. It is also accompanied by historical tables that set out past budget figures.

The third role that the President’s budget plays is to signal to Congress what spending and tax policy changes the President recommends. The President does not need to propose legislative changes for those parts of the budget that are governed by permanent law if he feels none are necessary. Nearly all of the federal tax code is set in permanent law, and will not expire. Similarly, more than one-half of federal spending — including the three largest entitlement programs (Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) — is also permanently enacted. Interest paid on the national debt is also paid automatically, with no need for specific legislation.

The President does have to ask for one type of spending each year:
Funding for “discretionary” or “appropriated” programs, which fall under the jurisdiction of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Discretionary programs must have their funding renewed each year in order to continue operating. Almost all defense spending is discretionary, as are the budgets for K-12 education, health research, and housing, to name just a few examples. Altogether, discretionary programs make up about one-third of all federal spending. The President’s budget spells out how much funding he recommends for each discretionary program.

Step Two: The Congressional Budget Resolution
After receiving the President’s budget request, Congress generally holds hearings to question Administration officials about their requests and then develops its own budget resolution. This work is done by the House and Senate Budget Committees, whose primary function is to draft the budget resolution. Once the committees are done, their budget resolutions go to the House and Senate floors, where they can be amended (by a majority vote). A House-Senate conference then resolves any differences, and a conference report is passed by both houses.

The budget resolution is supposed to be passed by April 15, but it often takes longer. Occasionally, Congress does not pass a budget resolution. If that happens, the previous year’s resolution, which is a multi-year plan, stays in effect.

Unlike the President’s budget, which is very detailed, the congressional budget resolution is a very simple document. It consists of a set of numbers stating how much Congress is supposed to spend in each of 19 broad spending categories (known as budget “functions”) and how much total revenue the government will collect, for each of the next five or more years. (The Congressional Budget Act requires that the resolution cover a minimum of five years, though Congress sometimes chooses a longer period, such as 10 years.) The difference between the two totals — the spending ceiling and the revenue floor — represents the deficit (or surplus) expected for each year.
So the executive branch has an active role in this budgetary process, including that the President has to make a budget request to kick-start the whole process. While the final product may come from Congress, they are not operating in isolation of the executive branch. It's part of that whole checks-and-balances mechanism.

I am curious, to what extent does the budget produced by Congress tend to differ from a president's budget request? I imagine when the same party controls both branches the product tends to be pretty close to the request, but how extreme have the differences actually been when the legislative and executive branches are contolled by opposing parties?
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Post by IJ »

But Romney had executive experience and business management experience! What went wrong?!?

And re: Obamacare, if the supreme court challenges fail.... why not repeal it? They should have enough control to do this even if Obama is reelected in 2 years, if this is what America wants. Nevermind the budgetary strangle. We can go back to the freefall into insolvency instead of the Chinese credit card for coverage. They're not that different. I can't wait to start rationing!!!

see also http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0907487
Last edited by IJ on Thu Nov 18, 2010 1:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Jason Rees »

IJ wrote:But Romney had executive experience and business management experience! What went wrong?!?
The media liked McCain, right up until he was facing the Chosen One. That's what went wrong.
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

IJ wrote:
But Romney had executive experience and business management experience! What went wrong?!?
His views, or lack thereof. Can you say chameleon?

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Post by Jason Rees »

The media did clobber him as a flip-flopper.
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Jason

Romney acted like a social liberal for his Massachusetts governor tenure, and then a social conservative when running for the the Republican party nomination for president. That to many smacks of pandering.

Even if you disagree with someone, most people appreciate a leader having firm opinions. The leader doesn't have to impose his/her opinions on others, but consistency is virtue and not vice.

What Ian said initially irritated me because it sounds like he was taunting. But he's right. On paper the Mitt Romney candidacy seemed like the right combination of everything. But Romney the person was just a little too amorphous. He seemed more an actor than Ronald Reagan himself.

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Post by Jason Rees »

Bill, I agree. It just so happened the press was more than happy to play that up (though they unanimously ignored it in Obama). Here's hoping he gets steamrolled again in 2012.
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often.
- Chris Matthews

Well, Jason... You have to believe that with this kind of man-crush, many of his worshipers must have been looking at the dude with beer-goggle eyes.

Image

It must suk when you wake up with a hangover 2 years later, and realize he's coyote ugly.

Image

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Post by IJ »

Let's not forget the complete revision of McCain when he had to toe the party line as a nominee. I used to really like the guy. Before long he was being promoted by a series of really nasty attack ads and has changed positions on a number of issues (most recently, he had to swing right on immigration so they wouldn't tar and feather him in AZ). And there's nothing like seeing a once reasonable sane person bleating like a goat that there are no expulsions for being gay from today's military. Oh? It reminded me of what Hitchen's said about wacko Hugo Chavez's increasingly odd claims:

"Chávez, in other words, is very close to the climactic moment when he will announce that he is a poached egg and that he requires a very large piece of buttered toast so that he can lie down and take a soothing nap."

http://thinkprogress.org/mccain-flip-flops/#torture has some examples, although I do not vouch for the entire site. Just a relevant hit from a google. It's worth pointing out that many candidates do this and must do this because, for example, the mood at republican primaries was so far to the right that people had to speak to that mindset to get nominated and speak to another to get elected (despite the wave!). I mean, they sent up a witch with an antimasturbation program. And what about that Crist guy in Florida? How about Alaska? Both parties pick wackos and the middle suffers for it.
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Post by Jason Rees »

Ok. About the Alaska guy. He wasn't rejected for right-wing views (most Alaskans identify themselves as independents, but vote heavily conservative/libertarian with environmental issues towards the front of their minds). He was rejected (barely) because of a nth-hour revelation in the news about a cherry-picked incident two years ago in which he did something stupid. For this he was piloried in the press for being unethical. He had no time to recover/spin the issue, and he bled voters for it (though he only lost by =~ 10,000 votes.

Bar none the reason people now talk negatively about Miller isn't because he's staunchly pro-life, or because of any other litmus issue. It's soley because he's viewed now as unethical (and given Alaska's recent ethics-centered nastiness, Alaskans are rightly touchy about this kind of thing).

Miller doesn't qualify for whacko status.
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

IJ wrote:
It's worth pointing out that many candidates do this and must do this because, for example, the mood at republican primaries was so far to the right that people had to speak to that mindset to get nominated and speak to another to get elected (despite the wave!).
I don't buy the major premise, Ian.

First... I'm not going to beat McCain up for going to town hall meetings and listening to his constituents about immigration. Characterizing positions on this serious problem as "far right" vs. "far left" is specious, don't you think? People who circumvent the legal immigration process become a very real burden on systems that the taxpayers must pay for. McCain spent too much time in Washington and forgot to represent his constituents. Unlike others, he came back home and listened. There are no "pretty" solutions to this ugly problem. But I do think that someone who lives in a state with a serious immigration problem and an $84 billion debt would understand.

McCain's "maverick" label comes from the fact that he doesn't necessarily toe the party line. He can be best characterized as a moderate pragmatist.

And second... McCain's position on gays in the military is both consistent with his generation and to respected since he paid a serious price for wearing the uniform. Those who fight in my opinion have a right to express their opinions on the matter. The most serious problem here is fraternization and maintaining the military espirit de corp. I think the trends on this matter are inevitable, but I don't expect the military to change any faster than it takes to solve a social issue while making sure that our women and men in the military service do their jobs.

As for waffling in the primaries, well... Not necessary in my opinion.

Let's drop the stupid labels, OK? I get it that you want to call your enemies "far right." Maybe if you used the label "fuzzy bunny", it might be just as precise.

ONE of the many constituent groups looking for a home in the Republican party are religious who have strong positions on abortion and stem cell research. Nobody is going to convince me that these are "no big deal" issues or that anyone's specific opinion on the matter is "wrong." That said, I think it's important to distinguish how one takes these particular social issues into the realm of federal law. When and how much should the federal government get into the business of legislating morality? What does the Constitution tell us on the matter? When do the States in this Republic get to exercise their individual preferences?

Yes, Virginia, it is possible to have a paradoxical view on the matter. I can be pro choice but think it's not a matter for the federal government. I can be pro life and think that it's not a matter for the federal government.

More importantly... What are we as a country doing to make life easier for the religious? If we don't want the nanny state, then society needs a moral fiber. The less the role of the federal government on social issues, the more we need the religious to fill that vacuum. There's a place at the table for those who preach ethics as a way of life. There's a place at the table for those who make love and charity a prime directive.

How hard is that?

We don't need panderers as leaders. We need principled visionaries who respect the people they represent. Oh and to use the words of Wild Willie, "It's the economy, stupid!"

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Post by IJ »

So McCain changed his mind on some issues and he was listening to constituents (voters). Romney changes his mind to please other voters, and he's a flip flopper? Is that what we've concluded?

And McCain's position on gays in the military is one thing. He's welcome to his OPINION about the wisdom of ending discrimination (I fail to see how getting tortured makes his opinion more valuable than any other serviceperson who wasn't tortured, and since his generation rarely serves in the trenches these days, current views matter more as well). But it's one thing to have an opinion about the ease of integration, other to ignore the echos of racially segregated units and the identical arguments, and a third to claim that the military isn't pursuing discharges. That's like the difference between saying you believe the Creation was 9,000 years ago and saying that there's no carbon dating, fossil, geologic, or astronomical data that the universe is older.

As for characterizing immigration positions as either far left and far right, you're correct, that would be silly and I'm glad I didn't do that. I want to call my opponents "far right" as much as you want to call people "far left" and "liberals"--merely for the purpose of identifying ideologies so I don't have to go into lengthy descriptions of their views. I personally was really torn in the CA governor's race. On the one hand, I really couldn't vote for a lady who herself hadn't voted for years, had that embarrassing and dishonest maid spectacle, tried to buy the election, and wanted to use scarce public monies to support Prop 8. But I really, really wanted someone with her views on our pension nightmare and union relations to come in and clean up the mess here rather than union buddy Jerry Brown. So don't freak out when I use a label here and there, like everyone else. I keep saying this till I'm blue in the face but I'm not just a pale Obama. Remember that fantasy Ian you were convinced got his playbook from Salon but didn't actually read it? I think about issues individually just like you.

As for making life easier for the religious, whoa, nelly. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. A few learned people have understood this to mean the promotion of religion, rather than going all the way and declaring a state belief like they have over in the UK. Now I am all for supporting charitable organizations, and support them myself, including religious ones. But the idea that only religious groups can provide a "moral fiber" or "fill the vacuum" and that only religious people believe in an ethical way of life or make love and charity a prime directive or that they don't have a "place at the table" unless they can get preferential treatment is groundless as well as Unconstitutional. I'll give you that religious organizations are more likely to be charitable in focus than others but saying they therefore get "special rights" is like saying the Asian kids seem smarter so they'll get preference on admissions, across the board. And while we make life easier for "the religious" we also support activities like those of the Westboro Baptists and the Mormons, who aren't necessarily feeding the homeless with the money but pouring it into oh, I dunno, demonstrations at soldier's funerals and social issues in other states that aren't any of their business.

Let's make life easier for charities instead, without regard to religious status. Maybe go by effectiveness, even?
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

IJ wrote:
So McCain changed his mind on some issues and he was listening to constituents (voters). Romney changes his mind to please other voters, and he's a flip flopper? Is that what we've concluded?
You can't flip from pro-choice to pro-life on a dime. Sorry, but the *nature* of the changes aren't even in the same league. There's a difference between saying you listened to your constituents and saying that you had a come-to-Jesus moment just before The Convention. That sheet don't fly.

I used to like Mitt Romney. I lost respect for him for several very good reasons. Next!
IJ wrote:
And McCain's position on gays in the military is...
I detect a bit of anger in you.

I'll listen to him about what's appropriate for the military. He's earned the right to make statements that frankly aren't that outrageous.

I can accept that you disagree.
IJ wrote:
I want to call my opponents "far right" as much as you want to call people "far left" and "liberals"--merely for the purpose of identifying ideologies so I don't have to go into lengthy descriptions of their views.
It's intellectually lazy and it fails to inform. You're better than that. (I know how smart you are, so... I'm not going to let you get away with that.)
IJ wrote:
I think about issues individually just like you.
As you should.
IJ wrote:
As for making life easier for the religious...

More anger. Oy!!! How about live and let live, Ian. Would it kill you? How about not casting literally billions of people on this planet into one bucket and classifying them all as one view opposed to your own?

And more inappropriate characterizations of my views. Please re-read what I wrote.
IJ wrote:
Let's make life easier for charities instead, without regard to religious status. Maybe go by effectiveness, even?
What made you think I feel any different?

Meanwhile... Just how do you propose the population learn about The Golden Rule, issues with mortality, self-worth, etc., etc. without getting a nanny government involved or waste precious tax dollars in the schools when they really should be teaching math and science? (And a few other subjects...) Would it kill you to let the religious enjoy their myriad fellowships? Does it bug you that religion actually may help some people be better people? Don't you think that a Democracy needs good people?

Must we all join your church?

"Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities."

Savor that thought! Our views aren't as far apart as you make them out to be. ;)

More importantly... all these social issues are a distraction during a time when we should be working together under the same tent to get our economic house in order. It's amazing the respect that happens (both ways) when people work together and achieve together.

- Bill
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