Federal Budget

Obviously an issue that's getting lots of press in D.C. these days. The primary drivers of the federal budget include things like health care spending, military, and bailouts and subsidies for the financial sector and others. Lowered revenues due to changes in tax policy and economic weakness have also contributed to higher deficits. The general policy consensus (among both parties) has gathered around the notion that spending on social and regulatory programs has to be reduced to spur growth. In their mind, the US economy is sort of like a household budget. They relate personal income and expenditures to that of the federal expenditures and income, and those of business. It is a simplistic comparison, a false analogy that sounds good, but has many flaws from a macroeconomic standpoint. Ultimately, the government is not a business--it can not make a profit at the taxpayers expense. There are other fundamental differences between public and private entities that they ignore. ... Read more

Congrats. We just hit the big FIFTEEN. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

The single issue upon which both parties can agree, the federal government should have a budget. Neither side appears to have figured out how to live within it though.

It's funny how we call it the Federal Budget when were the ones paying for it, but we don't get a say in how and where it gets used. It's just like being married with out the wife, head aches, and the nagging.

Stop the spending starting with congressional paychecks.

An absolutely critical issue, which impacts almost every other issue, and which no administration (Democrat or Republican) has handled well or is particularly excited about debating. It is due to this that issues like Gay Marriages and Indecency and Spam E-Mails get undue prominence by pol's in the usually successful hope of distracting the voters. And does it ever work. If you doubt me, just take a look at the comments and ratings on this list.

Spending and ear marking are out of control! We are spending too much on corruption and waste in big govt.

"Make sure we don't call it torture!" "Make sure we keep people distracted by calling our opponents extremists!" "Make sure that our lap-dog response involves (right or left) wing!" Real issues involving the future health of the nation, including the budget, are cast aside in the name of pandering to a short-attention-span voting base who seems to be quite content with the entertaining yet ineffective leadership in Washington.

Our national debt is approximately 9 trillion dollars- by governement bookkeeping standards. In May a study was published where corporate standards had been used for calculation. By this (real) method, our debt is 59.3 trillion dollars. Solving this problem will be no big deal, so long as every American household can cough up $516,000.00. What a fine job they have done...and some people want to put this same government in charge of our healthcare system. Simply amazing.

Some interesting quotes from the conservative Cato Institute: President Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson. Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is still the biggest-spending president in 30 years... and The GOP was once effective at controlling nondefense spending. The final nondefense budgets under Clinton were a combined $57 billion smaller than what he proposed from 1996 to 2001. Under Bush, Congress passed budgets that spent a total of $91 billion more than the president requested for domestic programs. Bush signed every one of those bills during his first term. Even if Congress passes Bushs new budget exactly as proposed, not a single cabinet-level agency will be smaller than when Bush assumed office. Pretty damning stuff. Any way you look at it, President Bush and the Republican Congress have been reckless and irresponsible in spending our money. I'm not sure about ... Read more

The budget reflects the social priorities of our goverment. The people of this country should have confidence that our polititions know how to spend money we give them. A balanced budget would restore confidence in government.

the budget deficit is large, but as a % of gdp is not at historic highs. Still, as America is beginning to notice, budget deficits lead to higher interest rates, which leads to higher prices, which lead to economic slowdown. We need to always make balancing the budget a high priority.

More like a federal spending free-for-all rather than a federal budget. Both parties should get serious about cutting government spending and acting in a fiscally responsible manner. Things are getting (if not already gotten) out of control.

OK- we were told we'd have to make sacrifices,so lets give up every safety net for the Working Class.Oh,but there's plenty of funds for a new Yacht and helicopter for our regular joe in the White House.

I must admit that President Bush's spending habits have grown to be quite liberal but to blame our goverments fiscal problems soley at the Presidents door step is ludicrous in every sense of the word and purely irresponsible. To do so would only be a half-hearted attempt to slanderize the President. With that said it is important to remember that you don't fix finiacial problems by raising taxes at your every whim. Rather, you solve the problem by cutting wasteful spending as the President partially addressed in his State of the Union.

Did I mention how important it was to curtail the spending? The US Congress, encouraged by President Bush in his 1st term, spends money like a drunken sailor, like me on bonus day. Until substantially more pressure is brought to bear on your local Congressman/woman, preferably by you, don't expect the federal budget problem to go away. If you do not write, e-mail or call your representative, and you rSenators, you are part of the problem, not the solution. Don't bother shaking your fist at Bush, or any other politician, unless you have done the bare minimum of what you can do personally, right now, each day. It's little enough.

Cut it by 70%.

The federal budget is the most serious short-term and long-term problem facing the United States today. For the uninitiated, the concept of deficit spending is based on making government expenditures consistent despite changes in tax revenues as the latter is subject to many factors. In theory, the government borrows during recessions (ie deficit spending) and pays the debt back (or accumulates reserves) during economic booms. The problem is that the government never does the latter resulting in debt building on debt, effectively allowing current taxpayers to not pay for their current and accrued public benefits, ultimately shifting the cost to future generations of taxpayers (ie generational tax inequity). This failure by government is easily illustrated by the Clinton Administration which governed during one of the longest economic booms, yet failed to reduce actual (not just paper) debt or create real wealth reserves for accumulated, but unrecorded future liabilities. As some g... Read more

Boring. Both parties spend too much. Either side pointing fingers is highly hypocritical.

To put in plainly, our budget and our fiscal house all together is a mess. It amazes me that my fellow citizens do not take our current budgetary problems seriously. The deficit is at an all-time high, federal spending is at its highest level in history, and the national debt is climbing. In 1980, federal spending was at $590.95B. By 2000, it had climbed to $1.8T dollars, and that number has continued to go up over the period of the past three years. In 1980, the national debt was at $909B. Today, it is approaching $6Trillion. This is an increase of over $5Trillion dollars. If something is not done about this, future generations are going to be bearing the burden of paying for the mistakes that we make today. We are not even paying down the debt now--- we are paying off the interest. The interest on the national debt is the 3rd biggest expendature on the budget. In addition to this, the federal budget is loaded with pork and waste. Hundreds of unneccessary agencies, several wasteful de... Read more

I would like to see more spent on Education and poverty. Less on defense and social security. Don't get mad I'm not advocating throwing old people in the street who truly need it. However there are tons of mom and pops who take the cadillac to Florida to their condo on the beach every year, and truly don't need social security which is by the way WAY more than welfare. Social security is the biggest spendature of the federal budget(more than half.) It would save a gillion tons of cash each year to means test it.

Communist Manifesto? Man, that guys way off. The federal budget is necessary for those creature comforts like the military, intersate travel means, or foreign relations. That said it is not only important to have a federal budget, but it must also be balanced both in financial terms and in what we spend it on. Currently it is neither. We are massively in debt and yet the best solution that the Republicans can come up with is to spend $100 on a war with Iraq followed up by a proposed $550 billion tax cut to the richest Americans. We are also spending $379 billion a year on our military. That is higher then the next 25 highest spending military powers COMBINED! How many planets do we have to conquer? And don't get me wrong I am all for more money for the troops and I would like to see them make substantially more money, but this isn't being spent on that it's being spent in contracts handed out to defense companies. All this while we can give the same quality public education to our chil... Read more

definitely more important than gay rights, for example......

You had better believe the Federal Budget is a major government issue, whose money do you think they are spending? I agree with others, I do not like giving up my hard earned money to pay income tax, but if they are going to steal it from me anyway, they better use it wisely. I understand that like any organization, the government requires funds to operate. I mildly accept this fact with still some level of pain. The Federal Budget has become something more than running the government, it is for running personal agendas. The government needs to draw a hard line in the sand and starting saying no. Every issue they take on to try to solve every program created to appease some group’s complaint is a burden on the budget and the taxpayers. If they will run the government, not people’s lives, they will find they have a huge surplus and can grossly reduce the tax burden.

I'm a federalism & think that the federal level should get more of the power the states have today. In many cases this could be essential for not violating fundamental human right, for instance when it come to death penalty. I wouldn't be surprised if death penalty would be history if it was raised to a higher level. :-)

The federal leviathan is fed by the unconstitutional confiscation of our hard-earned money by the IRS. The heavy graduated income tax with which we are cursed, and the Federal Reserve System are both planks in the Communist Manifesto. As such, they are decidedly un-American. The fact that there is any debate in Congress over what to do with the budget surplus is absurd. GIVE IT BACK! IT'S NOT YOUR MONEY!

It will be interesting to see if, under Bush, the (barely) Republican Congress is able to restrain spending. They became very poor custodians of our tax dollars under Clinton after they lost their political battle over the budget in 1995. All the same, this year's budget and whether we run a surplus or deficit is not nearly as important as reforming the long-term entitlements programs that commit us to huge deficits in ten years if we don't do something fast. For that reason, I need to rate this as a relatively unimportant issue.