# Republicans Shoot Down Obama's Budget...Precedent? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 12, 2016, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-shoot-down-obamas-budget-precedent/745896 "2016-02-12T03:39:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-shoot-down-obamas-budget-precedent/745896/1 "2016-02-12T03:39:17Z")
The Republican House of Representatives threw Obama’s proposed budget in the trash, without even opening it. Absolutely DOA. My memory is telling me that the Democratic House did this to George W. Bush at least once, maybe more than once. Is that correct? This is precedented, isn’t it? (I might have asked in General Questions, but figured it’d probably end up here anyway…) ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-shoot-down-obamas-budget-precedent/745896/2 "2016-02-12T04:00:46Z")
I believe Congress has always used the President’s budget as a baseline, but have varied over time as to how much they want to change it. I doubt very much that what you say is correct; I think “throwing the budget in the trash” is just political gimmickry. I expect that the Republican Budget and Appropriations committee staff have and continue to examine the budget documents very carefully. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-shoot-down-obamas-budget-precedent/745896/3 "2016-02-12T05:09:39Z")
[No, they have specifically rejected it, and declined to consider it at all.](http://www.npr.org/2016/02/09/466186303/republicans-reject-obamas-4-trillion-budget-proposal) I’m just curious if this was done by the Democratic House to any of Bush (the younger’s) budgets. I seem to remember it was, but I’m not clear on this. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-shoot-down-obamas-budget-precedent/745896/4 "2016-02-12T14:15:22Z")
Yeah, I’m sure they were speaking figuratively when they said Obama’s budget was thrown in the trash. Would they even send it as a paper copy these days? I’d think it would be e-mailed. I’m also sure the budget that comes out of Congress will have little resemblance, if any, to what Obama sent them. I’ve read that the president’s last budget is often more… uh, wishful?.. than your typical budget proposal. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-shoot-down-obamas-budget-precedent/745896/5 "2016-02-12T14:34:16Z")
I think the definition of what it means to reject a budget is very important here, as well as a better understanding of the government’s budget process. The budget proposal that comes from the President includes many, many things: 1. Aggregate spending levels across government. 2. Detailed proposals on what agencies operating costs are, including things like how many F-35 fighters the Navy wants to buy. 3. Estimates of revenues based on tax policy and economic conditions. 4. Estimates of the cost of mandatory programs based on economic conditions, the number of beneficiaries, value of the benefits, etc. 5. Proposals to change policies or priorities to reflect what the President wants to accomplish in the next year. 6. Various other stuff, like estimates of the debt and deficit under future years according to the proposals in the budget. So the Budget Committees of Congress are basically entirely focused on 1, 3, 4, and 6. Individual appropriations, authorization, and tax bills relate to 2, 3, 4, and 5. What Republicans in Congress have said is that what they expected Obama to propose, mostly for #5, but also sort of for #1, was so truly awful that they didn’t even need to see the budget before declaring those proposals completely dead. However, in order to have the budget process work, there’s really no way of getting around the need for the President’s budget to provide data for #2, 3, 4, and 6. Sure, Congress may make plenty of changes to those things, but Congress simply isn’t capable of doing its own ground-up estimate of how much printing materials are needed in the Department of Interior’s Office of the Inspector General; or how much the cost changes of thousands of pharmaceuticals used by the VA medical system will impact the budget. It’s impossible. I’m not sure there’s precedent for a budget to be rhetorically rejected before it arrives in Congress, but the vast, vast majority of the data transmitted in the President’s budget will absolutely be used in the congressional budget process. ETA: It’s also become common during floor debates on the budget for the party in opposition to the President to offer up “the President’s budget proposal” for a vote. It’s always voted down… and the fact that sometimes little changes to the budget make their way in to the amendment to make the “President’s budget” a little less attractive, well, surely that has nothing to do with the vote… right? ---
**Author:** ![JXJohns](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jxjohns/32/469_2.png) [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-shoot-down-obamas-budget-precedent/745896/6 "2016-02-12T17:34:44Z")
[Congress Pronounces Reagan Budget Doa 1986](http://articles.philly.com/1986-02-06/news/26089529_1_gramm-rudman-annual-deficit-targets-spending-cuts) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-shoot-down-obamas-budget-precedent/745896/7 "2016-02-12T21:18:54Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > . . . Would they even send it as a paper copy these days? I’d think it would be e-mailed. . . . Yep. Physical paper copy, printed and bound. One of the Republicans made jokes about the cover art. > [@JXJohns](#): > > [Congress Pronounces Reagan Budget Doa 1986](http://articles.philly.com/1986-02-06/news/26089529_1_gramm-rudman-annual-deficit-targets-spending-cuts) Cool! Thanks! Good to know. That tells me there is precedent. (But did it ever happen to GWB?) ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-shoot-down-obamas-budget-precedent/745896/8 "2016-02-12T21:24:16Z")
> [@JXJohns](#): > > [Congress Pronounces Reagan Budget Doa 1986](http://articles.philly.com/1986-02-06/news/26089529_1_gramm-rudman-annual-deficit-targets-spending-cuts) I had heard that someone drove Reagan’s budget to Congress in an ambulance, as a way of showing it was “dead on arrival”. Looking into it a bit more, apparently it was just a bit of a prank by the OMB guys: [http://articles.latimes.com/1986-02-05/news/mn-4372\_1\_budget-office](http://articles.latimes.com/1986-02-05/news/mn-4372_1_budget-office)