oh gods, the slippery slope.......

[spike]

Congress needs to learn to control itself.

And these republican presidents should have designed better budgets.

 

[randomJACKASS]

I must confess though watching Cerise is akin to a train wreck or a multi-car pile up. It is horrific, but you just can't not watch!

 

[Gonz]

Gonz[/B] (unofficial and only regarding political "debate", see )

So why any of you bother even trying to bait me, I don't know.

Bait you? I'm trying to wake you up before it's too late. Our nation is based on ONE DOCUMENT. Over the last hundred years a movement has been afoot to change our system. It's working. However, as long as there are a few of us who read it, study its intents & understand it, there is some hope.

 

[randomJACKASS]

 

[Gonz]

And these republican presidents should have designed better budgets.

Not that it matters.

Congress passed the bills.

435 vs 1.

 

[spike]

Not that it matters.

It certainly does matter how presidents design budgets. It decides how much money goes where.

 

[Gonz]

It decides wher teh President wants to send money.

CONGRESS ALLOCATES ALL MONIES.

 

[spike]

Yeah, and presidents do design much of the budget.

Some say Reagan had nothing to do with the debt's U turn
They say it was Congressional Democrats. Not true. Had things worked out just as Reagan proposed and predicted, the debt still would have gone up 85% as much. But even this is deceptive. The reason his predicted savings did not materialize was not Congress. The reason was that he predicted much more economic growth from supply-side magic than actually happened. So he counted on taxes that were never collected to help his budgets. In fact a study by the House found that Reagan asked for $29.4 billion more in spending than Congress passed.



From the White House: The Reagan-Bush Debt Explained
"The traditional pattern of running large deficits only in times of war or economic downturns was broken during much of the 1980s. In 1982 [Reagan's first budget year], partly in response to a recession, large tax cuts were enacted. However, these were accompanied by substantial increases in defense spending. Although reductions were made to nondefense spending, they were not sufficient to offset the impact on the deficit. As a result, deficits averaging $206 billion were incurred between 1983 and 1992. These unprecedented peacetime deficits increased debt held by the public from $789 billion in 1981 to $3.0 trillion (48.1% of GDP) in 1992." [emphasis added]

http://zfacts.com/p/57.html

 

[Gonz]

So then, in this wild new USA, Congress does not pass expenditure bills?

 

[spike]

They pass them. The presidents do a lot of the designing with their budget director.

This is pretty interesting:

http://www.geocities.com/thereaganyears/economicpolicy.htm

 

[Gonz]

If the Congress passes budget bills, why don't you hold them accountable?

 

[catocom]

I like the 'audit the fed' bill idea.

 

[spike]

If the Congress passes budget bills, why don't you hold them accountable?

I do, and I hold the guy that designed the budget especially accountable. What's up with you?

 

[Gonz]

He's got one real role in the whole process...to sign into law or to veto.

Why would the Congress allow the man, who is required to apply the final OK, to write a budget to begin with? Sounds fishy....