Congress and the President's Budget

[rickc]

All you righties are always harping about it was congress and not the president that ran up the deficits. Specifically Democratic congress.

Fact is Congress changes the president's budget very little. Sure they have the power but they don't use it. Reality is most of the budget is in the mandatory spending category and neither the president or congress has the ability to cut it without passing legislation. That just leaves the discretionary side of the budget.

below you will find a link to a table that shows the presidents proposed budget, the cuts or increases by congress and the final budget going back to the 40's. You will find that congress doesn't change the presidents budget very much.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CDO...c18-1-12-4.pdf


here is a little look at the republican lie "Its the Democrats Fault"




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

Congress: Not Democratic, and Not to Blame


Conservatives are embarrassed by the way Reagan and the Bush's ran the debt up and out of control. So they have invented a cover story: The Democratic Congress did it. I have run into this lie dozens of times. So, I dug deep to set the record straight.



As the figure shows, Reagan and Bush senior got almost exactly the budgets they request in each of their 12 budget years.

Reagan:
The first budget — passed by all Republicans and a few conservative Southern Democrats.
This increased the debt by $144 Billion.
The next 5 budgets — passed by the Republican Senate and signed by Reagan.
The last 2 budgets — passed by a Democratic Congress
Totaled slightly less than Reagan requested.
G. W. H. Bush:
Democratic Congresses under Bush passed smaller budgets than he requested in 3 out of 4 years.
These four Democratic budgets totaled $14.6 Billion less than Bush requested.
G. W. Bush:
The first two budgets — Senate was split 50/50 and the House was Democratic.
Bipartisan and totaled $20 Billion less than Bush requested.
The biggest cause of deficits was Bush's enormous tax cut, mainly for the rich.
The next 4 budgets — the Congress was solid Republican.
The last 2 budgets — Bush vetoed modest Democratic attempts at spending.

In summary: Democrats controlled Congress during 8 out the 20 years. During 4 of those years, Democrats decreased the budgets proposed by the Republican presidents. Their total effect during those 8 years was to reduce Republican budgets by $17 Billion (which is only 0.2%).
As the figure shows, Reagan and Bush senior got almost exactly the budgest they request in each of their 12 budget years.

Reagan:
The first budget — passed by all Republicans and a few conservative Southern Democrats.
This increased the debt by $144 Billion.
The next 5 budgets — passed by the Republican Senate and signed by Reagan.
The last 2 budgets — passed by a Democratic Congress
Totaled slightly less than Reagan requested.
G. W. H. Bush:
Democratic Congresses under Bush passed smaller budgets than he requested in 3 out of 4 years.
These four Democratic budgets totaled $14.6 Billion less than Bush requested.
G. W. Bush:
The first two budgets — Senate was split 50/50 and the House was Democratic.
Bipartisan and totaled $20 Billion less than Bush requested.
The biggest cause of deficits was Bush's enormous tax cut, mainly for the rich.
The next 4 budgets — the Congress was solid Republican.
The last 2 budgets — Bush vetoed modest Democratic attempts at spending.

In summary: Democrats controlled Congress during 8 out the 20 years. During 4 of those years, Democrats decreased the budgets proposed by the Republican presidents. Their total effect during those 8 years was to reduce Republican budgets by $17 Billion (which is only 0.2%).

[Mister-Jr]

Wing nuts will claim anything...doesn't mean it's the truth.

[rickc]

Wing nuts will claim anything...doesn't mean it's the truth.

but mister

most of the righties are just repeating what their masters have told them. They only take in information that supports what they choose to believe.

we must show them the error of their ways

I know they hate facts that is why I must continue to post them.

[Mister-Jr]

Your effort may be noble, but in vain...

[bswiv]

Great.............the team players are arguing over which team made things worse fastest......and no guts to change that metric.

Bush had the House and Senate......still it got worse....

Obama hat the House and Senate.......and still things got worse......

Clinton & Gingrich...........never thought I'd miss them..........

[camojoe]

I know they hate facts that is why I must continue to post them.

I know you prefer charts, but here are the facts. The budget deficit in Obama's first 3 years in office eclipses any previous shortfalls, it's not even close. From 2008's annual deficit of 458.5B to 1.412B in 2009 and you have the audacity to reference Reagan/Bush budgets as runaway spending?? So while you continue to piss and moan about prior administrations, people who live in reality are worried about whats transpiring now, with THIS president. Oh, and just to finish up, the deficits for 2010, 2011, and estimated 2012's don't bode well for your "charts" either.

[rickc]

I know you prefer charts, but here are the facts. The budget deficit in Obama's first 3 years in office eclipses any previous shortfalls, it's not even close. From 2008's annual deficit of 458.5B to 1.412B in 2009 and you have the audacity to reference Reagan/Bush budgets as runaway spending?? So while you continue to piss and moan about prior administrations, people who live in reality are worried about whats transpiring now, with THIS president. Oh, and just to finish up, the deficits for 2010, 2011, and estimated 2012's don't bode well for your "charts" either.

Ezra Klein

Ezra Klein
Columnist

Doing the math on Obama's deficits


By Ezra Klein, Published: January 31



The campaign trail can be a lonely place, so Mitt Romney frequently invites friends to accompany him. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is an occasional companion. So is Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. But more often, Romney brings a large clock.

Romney’s people made it themselves. It has two giant flat-screen televisions pushed side by side. It’s surrounded by a green foam sign. And it’s hooked to two computers feeding it a live count of America’s rising debt burden, which stands well above $15 trillion. The clock represents President Obama’s economic failures. It’s there so Romney can point to it and tell the crowd that if he’s elected, he’ll “do a better job slowing down that clock.” But if you’re a deficit-obsessed voter, the clock doesn’t answer the key question: How much has Obama added to the debt, anyway?


There are two answers: more than $4 trillion, or about $983 billion. The first answer is simple and wrong. The second answer is more complicated but a lot closer to being right.

When Obama took office, the national debt was about $10.5 trillion. Today, it’s about $15.2 trillion. Simple subtraction gets you the answer preferred by most of Obama’s opponents: $4.7 trillion.

But ask yourself: Which of Obama’s policies added $4.7 trillion to the debt? The stimulus? That was just a bit more than $800 billion. TARP? That passed under George W. Bush, and most of it has been repaid.

There is a way to tally the effects Obama has had on the deficit. Look at every piece of legislation he has signed into law. Every time Congress passes a bill, either the Congressional Budget Office or the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the effect it will have on the budget over the next 10 years. And then they continue to estimate changes to those bills. If you know how to read their numbers, you can come up with an estimate that zeros in on the laws Obama has had a hand in.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities was kind enough to help me come up with a comprehensive estimate of Obama’s effect on the deficit. As it explained to me, it’s harder than it sounds.

Obama, for instance, is clearly responsible for the stimulus. The health-care law, too.

When Obama entered office, the Bush tax cuts were already in place and two wars were ongoing. Is it fair to blame Obama for war costs four months after he was inaugurated, or tax collections 10 days after he took office?

So the center built a baseline that includes everything that predated Obama and everything we knew about the path of the economy and the actual trajectory of spending through August 2011. Deviations from the baseline represent decisions made by the Obama administration. Then we measured the projected cost of Obama’s policies.

In two instances, this made Obama’s policies look more costly. First, both Democrats and Republicans tend to think the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts is a quirky budget technicality, and their full extension should be assumed. In that case, voting for their extension looks costless, and they cannot be blamed for the resulting increase in deficits. I consider that a dodge, and so I added Obama’s decision to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years — at a total cost of $620 billion — to his total. If Obama follows through on his promise to extend all the cuts for income under $250,000 in 2013, it will add trillions more to the deficit.

The other judgment call was when to end the analysis. After 10 years? After the first term? We chose 2017, the end of a hypothetical second term. Those are the years Obama might be blamed for, so they seemed like the ones to watch. But Obama’s spending is frontloaded, and his savings are backloaded. The stimulus bill, for instance, is mostly finished. But the Budget Control Act is expected to save $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years. The health-care law is expected to save more than a trillion dollars in its second decade. If our numbers were extended further, the analysis would have reflected more of Obama’s planned deficit reduction.

There’s also the issue of who deserves credit for what. In this analysis, anything Obama signed is attributed to Obama. But reality is more complicated. The $2.1 trillion debt-ceiling deal wouldn’t have happened without the Republicans. But a larger deficit-reduction deal — one including tax increases and spending cuts — might have.

In total, the policies Obama has signed into law can be expected to add almost a trillion dollars to deficits. But behind that total are policies that point in very different directions. The stimulus, for instance, cost more than $800 billion. So did the 2010 tax deal, which included more than $600 billion to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years, and hundreds of billions more in unemployment insurance and the payroll tax cut. Obama’s first budget increased domestic discretionary spending by quite a bit, but more recent legislation has cut it substantially. On the other hand, the Budget Control Act — the legislation that resolved August’s debt-ceiling standoff — saves more than $1 trillion. And the health-care reform law saves more than $100 billion.

For comparison’s sake, using the same method, beginning in 2001 and ending in 2009, George W. Bush added more than $5 trillion to the deficit.

What is often assumed in this conversation is that all deficit spending is equal and all of it is bad. That’s not the case. Deficit spending when the economy is growing is different from deficit spending when the economy is in crisis.

Nor is all deficit reduction alike. Sometimes, cutting the deficit will expand the economy. Sometimes, cutting the deficit will shrink the economy. Which brings up some other questions Romney’s clock can’t answer: What number we should see on it now? And when, and how fast, should it start slowing down?

[camojoe]

Like I said, Obama's budget deficits continue to rise at mind bending rates. You can post all the Bush charts you want, but at some point you have to admit the truth. Will Obama's budget numbers for 2010-2102 do or was W still pulling all the strings?

[rickc]

Like I said, Obama's budget deficits continue to rise at mind bending rates. You can post all the Bush charts you want, but at some point you have to admit the truth. Will Obama's budget numbers for 2010-2102 do or was W still pulling all the strings?

going to take a while to break the deficit trend from the depression of the bush years. In fact the trend from republican administrations for the last 40 years.



And if you righties don't acknowledge that revenues are a problem you are just ignoring the obvious. The reason you do this is only to avoid the obvious fact that taxes are going to have to go up. Supply Side Economics is a failure. Cutting spending? You could cut the entire discretionary side of the budget out and you would not balance the budget now. Cutting spending and raising taxes are not going to be enough. We have to put America back to work with quality jobs that will build the tax base.

[Gary M]

All you righties are always harping about it was congress and not the president that ran up the deficits.

Who signs massive spending Bills into law? Who has the right to veto spending Bills?