The Budget

[FishingRod]

The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires that the President of the United States submit to Congress, on or before the first Monday in February of each year, a detailed budget request for the coming federal fiscal year, which begins on October 1. Prepared by the president and the president's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the president's annual budget request performs three key functions in the annual federal budget process:

•The presidential budget request informs Congress of the president's vision of the three basic elements of U.S. fiscal policy: (1) how much money the government should spend on public needs and programs; (2) how much money the government should take in through taxes and other sources of revenue; and (3) how large a deficit or surplus will result -- simply the difference between money spent and money taken in.

•The presidential budget request tells Congress how much money the president believes should be spent on the various Cabinet-level federal functions, like defense, education, health, agriculture, etc. Within each function, the president's budget request must establish requested spending levels for smaller groups of related programs known as "budget accounts." For example, funding levels for federally subsidized student loans would be a budget account under the total proposed spending for the Department of Education.

•The presidential budget request can also be used to inform Congress of any changes in federal spending or tax policy the president intends to recommend.
While it is prepared annually, the president's budget request must anticipate program needs for five years in the future.

Spending the president does not have to request
Typically, about two-thirds of all annual federal spending goes to permanently enacted "entitlement" programs established by Congress, like Social Security and Medicare. The president does not have to request that entitlement programs be funded for the coming year. He or she can, however, use the presidential budget request to recommend new benefits or changes in the level of spending for specific entitlement programs. For example, President George W. Bush used a budget request to begin the establishment of the prescription drug benefit under the Medicare program.

Spending the president does have to request
The other one-third of annual federal spending goes to optional or "discretionary" programs or projects that must have their spending renewed or "reauthorized" by Congress every fiscal year. Just about all spending for defense programs is discretionary, as are programs like Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, space exploration and housing assistance grants. The president's budget request recommends funding levels for each discretionary program.

Congress considers the president's budget request
In the next phase of the annual budget process, the House and Senate Budget Committees will hold hearings on the president's budget request. In the hearings, administration officials -- sometimes even the secretaries of the Cabinet-level agencies -- are called to testify, and justify their specific budget requests. Based on the hearings and the president's budget request, the Budget Committees will prepare a draft of the congressional budget resolution. After being amended by the full House and Senate, the congressional budget resolution will go to a joint House-Senate conference committee, where any differences will be resolved. The conference report on the annual congressional budget resolution will then be debated and passed by both houses of Congress.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/federa...budgetprop.htm

[jjjayb]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Why?

It's not a bad idea, per se, but Obama's budget is going to be rejected/ignored by the House GOP anyway.

Maybe because of this:

The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires that the President of the United States submit to Congress, on or before the first Monday in February of each year

You know. A little thing like being required by law?

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by jjjayb

Maybe because of this:

You know. A little thing like being required by law?

We're also required by law to prevent American flags from touching the earth. And I'm pretty sure we've allowed a flag or two to slip out of our fingertips from time to time.

In other words, it's not a big deal.

The Obama budget had to be adjusted anyway because the fiscal cliff deal drug on for so long, and that deal set the baseline for whatever budget debate we are/were going to be having.

I agree the President should submit a proposal, but it's not particularly important to any of us in this thread. It's just something a handful of people can decide to be angry about for no good reason.

[HonestChieffan]

Illinois hasnt had a budget in years and everything seems good. Move on. Forward!

[RNR]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

We're also required by law to prevent American flags from touching the earth. And I'm pretty sure we've allowed a flag or two to slip out of our fingertips from time to time.

In other words, it's not a big deal.

The Obama budget had to be adjusted anyway because the fiscal cliff deal drug on for so long, and that deal set the baseline for whatever budget debate we are/were going to be having.

I agree the President should submit a proposal, but it's not particularly important to any of us in this thread. It's just something a handful of people can decide to be angry about for no good reason.

Nobody is angry, heck little things like the constitution, laws you know pesky little things like due process before you kill American citizens are beneath our precious leader~

[Comrade Crapski]

Now that President Obama's anti-sequester PR campaign has imploded, he's trying to sucker the GOP into a tax-hiking "grand bargain." They should refuse, and instead demand Obama produce his own budget.

For months Obama traveled around the country warning that disaster lay ahead if Republicans refused to replace the $84 billion in sequester cuts with more taxes.

Their obstinacy, he said, would cause a "series of dumb, arbitrary cuts" that would throw people out of their homes, deny women access to preventive care, cause monumental flight delays, and on and on.

Obama's scare tactics failed to sway the public, which ended up supporting cuts by a nearly 2-1 margin.

And after getting caught in a string of blatant lies and gross exaggerations about the sequester's effects, even Obama's Democratic colleagues and his friends in the press started to complain.

Now, suddenly, Obama is playing nice with Republicans, quickly arranging a dinner with 12 GOP senators and a lunch with Rep. Paul Ryan as part of what the press has dubbed a "charm offensive."

Obama's tactics might have changed, but his goal remains the same — to convince Republicans to accede to another round of tax hikes as part of some "grand bargain."

Republicans should just say no. Why should they talk about a deal with Obama when he still hasn't released his own budget proposal, as required by law?

A 1921 statute requires the president to submit a budget to Congress by the first Monday in February. That was more than a month ago.

Obama's initial excuse was that the "fiscal cliff" deal required a delay. But that last-minute agreement only caused a one-day delay in the Congressional Budget Office's annual budget report.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported this week that Obama now "plans to wait until the House acts to offer his budget plan."

The Post says administration officials "have not provided a release date or explained the unusual delay."

But the explanation is painfully obvious.

Obama doesn't want to admit he has no real plan to deal with the country's massive debt crisis.

After all, if Obama were to release a budget, it would show that despite his $600 billion tax hikes on the rich, the country is still hurtling toward a debt cliff.

And since he has taken real entitlement reform off the table, refuses to consider abandoning ObamaCare, and thinks even the meager sequester spending cuts are an abomination, Obama knows the only thing he has left to fill in the budget gap is another massive tax hike.

So he hopes either that Republicans will provide him political cover, or that he can sit back and take pot shots at the House GOP budget before showing his own hand.

Republicans can't let him get away with it.

They should refuse to engage in any "grand bargain" talks until Obama comes clean about how, exactly, he plans to spend with abandon and still get the nation's debt crisis under control.


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