Typically Congress fiddles with the President’s discretionary spending priorities, but stays close to the Executive branch’s deficit target.
Let me rephrase that for you. Yes I know the President submits his/her version of the budget. Nothing has changed from what I’ve said. Congress makes the budget. The only time it mattered was in 96/97 when the line-item veto was available. The Supreme Court ended that. You can argue that it does or does not give too much power to the President but it clearly upped the influence level.
Congress controls the budget. They also make the laws. And since they’ve decided not to work on relevant financial oversight matters this year there’s a certain justice in the beat-down some of them took in the market over the last couple of weeks.
As I said, all spending bills originate in the house. But approval of and editing a budget are not the same thing as constructing it. And remember we are talking of major influence, not control. I’d call making a budget writing the original version - clearly done by the executive branch.
Do you have an example of where the budget was substantially different from that proposed by the president? By substantially different I mean more different than one or two proposed programs rejected or cut. I’d say a 50% difference, at least.
What is written in the constitution is not what happens. Perhaps a civics course of what modern history has actually transpired would be useful to the members of the right. A budget is proposed by the Executive, and then introduced in Congress in the House as a budget bill. Competing budget bills may be introduced, but the one that gets committee time and sent around is the Executive’s proposal as modified by the various committees. It then goes to the Senate, is changed further, a conference committee with members from both chambers compromises again and then both chambers usually approve it and it gets sent to the Executive for signature. The Executive originates the bill and has input at every stage.
The suggestion that some budget committee somewhere in Congress comes up with an initial proposal is pure fantasy. It couldn’t be done.
Yes, we’re all aware of the process thank you. It doesn’t change the fact that Congress is responsible for the budget. They have the leverage. If you want to argue what influence the President has you’re free to do so but without line-item-veto the President is at the mercy of Congress. If the house parties match the President then the influence is great. If they don’t then the next driving force would be veto majority in both houses, which no party has at this point. that leaves ear-marking as a way to push something through.
Huh. And I had thought the OMB was responsible for preparing the President’s budget for presentation to Congress. I wonder what they do with their time.
There’s a pattern of higher budget deficits during Republican presidencies. Congress consistently returns a budget with similar deficits as proposed by the President.
But modern conservatives have refrained from drawing any causal conclusions from this for perhaps 30 years. They need to get a grip.
Then your own cite is telling you that the president’s influence on the economy is far less powerful than many other factors, a notion I strongly agree with. Presidents get far too much blame and credit for the economy, an enormous sea of activity that they like to pretend they can control, particularly during election years. But anyway, pointing to GNP growth charts holds very little weight for me, about as much as if you showed that there were more sunny days during Democratic presidencies. I’d shrug my shoulders and tell you that may well have been, but it had very little to do with fiscal policy.
What I expect from government is the smallest one possible, with the lowest taxes possible, something I get from neither party. A balanced budget, for example, does not mean that all the money was well-spent, only that they at least didn’t go into debt while wasting money. At least it’s better than a deficit. Why do I want this? Because I believe a runaway government spends money on things they shouldn’t, and it’s my money, period. Not because I think the economic cycle won’t chug along doing largely whatever it would have done anyway regardless of who is in office. It will, and so will the tides come in.
In fiscal terms, absolutely! Did you read the part about income inequality?
Dine and Dash is far too genteel for what Republicans are up to. I think “Loot & Scoot” is a more appropriate term.
No it’s not.
It has no implication along those lines. It means conservatives think liberals will tax all your income and spend it on things you don’t approve of.
I don’t see any meaningful distinction. I agree with both posts.
As I related earlier, this is actually a puzzle.
Christopher Carroll, Professor of Economics at the Johns Hopkins University, offers his thoughts at Roubini’s RGE Monitor. Emphasis added:
Indeed it does.
For those who want to see a comparison between Democratic and Republican administrations in graphic form, see Democrats Are Better Republicans than Republicans Are. I still find this puzzling.