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Budget, Spending & Shutdowns blog
Divided government gave us welfare reform and a balanced budgetWith Democrats set to run both chambers and Trump in the White House, the record of divided government shows which deals are possible and what they cost.The 1994 Contract With America and the End of Forty Years of House RuleRepublicans won the House in 1994 by telling voters in advance what they would vote on; here is what the Contract promised, passed and left on the table.Read My Lips and How the 1990 Budget Deal Led to the 1992 DefeatGeorge H. W. Bush broke a clear tax pledge in 1990 and lost his base in 1992; here is the argument for what a promise is worth in politics.Social Security's repair options laid side by side in one tableEvery Social Security fix is a version of the same few choices. Here is each one, its best argument, its cost and who pays it, in one table.How Social Security works and the promise built into its 1935 designSocial Security is a pay-as-you-go transfer, not a savings account, and the Supreme Court said so. How it works, what was promised, what the trustees report is.How Washington learned to budget, from the 1921 act to the 1997 dealEach major budget law answered the last failure. Dated entries from 1921 to 1997 show what each one fixed, what it broke, and what the pattern tells us.How a budget becomes law, from the President's request to the checksTen steps from the President's request to the Treasury payment, with the deadlines, the 60-vote Senate threshold and why mandatory spending sits outside.How to Read a Federal Budget With a Kitchen-Table WorksheetTurn the federal budget into a household equation with a repeatable worksheet, a worked example with exact arithmetic, and the places to find the real figures.Why Food Stamps Live in the Farm Bill and Whether That Marriage Should LastA 1970s vote-trading deal put food aid and farm subsidies in one bill. Here is how it happened, the best case on each side, and a verdict on whether to divorce.Warren Harding ended a deep depression in 1921 without a stimulus billThe depression of 1920 and 1921 lasted about eighteen months while Washington cut spending and taxes. What Harding did, what he didn't, and who deserves credit.The 1995 and 1996 Government Shutdowns in Dated Steps and the Lessons LearnedBoth parties still claim the shutdowns of 1995 and 1996, so here is the dated sequence, the aftermath and the lessons a Republican should draw.What a government shutdown really shuts down and who gets paidA shutdown stops far less than the headlines say. The Antideficiency Act, the Civiletti opinions, who works, who stays home, and who is guaranteed back pay.The Contract with America in ten bills and what it taught about winningNewt Gingrich's written promise gave House Republicans a platform voters could check, and it won them a majority for the first time in forty years.How a minority party fights a spending bill when it does not have the votesThe money tools in order, for a party out of the majority: appropriations, the 60-vote rule, deadlines, the veto, reconciliation and the CBO.Five vetoes Congress overrode and what each showed about presidential powerCongress overrode Republican presidents on war powers, open records, clean water, civil rights and defense. Each defeat teaches something about Article I.Why Spending Restraint Keeps Losing in Washington, Whoever Is in ChargeSpending cuts lose because of arithmetic and incentives, not because one party is weak. Here is the logic, and the reforms conservatives say can change it.Nixon Impounded the Money, Congress Fought Back, and the 1974 Law Still RulesMust a president spend what Congress appropriates? The law that governs the answer was written against Richard Nixon and still decides spending fights.Taxpayer-Funded Broadcasting, Ten Questions and the Honest AnswersTen questions on public broadcasting: the 1967 Act, PBS and NPR, rural stations, the market and First Amendment arguments, and what to concede.From the 1933 Farm Act to Freedom to Farm, How the Safety Net Got BuiltFarm programs began as Depression emergency measures and survived because nobody could end them. Here is the story from 1933 to 2014 and who pushed which way.The Drinking Age Story Shows How Washington Buys Control of the StatesCongress never ordered a drinking age of 21. It threatened highway money, the Supreme Court said fine, and a template for federal control was born.A Worksheet for Reading Your School District's Budget Line by LineFour calculations turn a school district budget from a wall of numbers into questions you can ask at a board meeting, with a fully worked hypothetical district.Ten Questions to Ask Before You Support Any New Government ProgramA ten-question checklist, with the reason behind each, for judging any new program, tested on examples from both parties including your own side.The 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and why they came with an expiration dateA Senate rule forced two big tax cuts to expire, and that rule explains a decade of cliff fights. Here is how the reconciliation trap works.The Tea Party Wave of 2010 Explained from Santelli to the StatehousesHow a burst of anger over bailouts and stimulus spending reshaped the Republican Party in under two years, and why its logic still drives intraparty fights.The Reagan Tax Cuts Rate by Rate and the Tax Reform of 1986What the 1981 law cut, the 1982 law took back, and the 1986 reform rewrote, with the arithmetic and an honest look at growth, revenue and the deficits.The 2011 debt-limit fight that produced real spending capsHouse Republicans elected in 2010 demanded cuts for a debt-limit increase and got the Budget Control Act of 2011. Here is the record and a fair verdict.Twelve questions about the national debt, answered straightDeficit versus debt, who owns it, what the limit does and why interest crowds out other spending, answered plainly with no current figures.Article V Explained, and the Amendment That Took More Than 200 YearsAmending the Constitution is hard on purpose. Here are the four routes, the 27 amendments, one that took 202 years, and a balanced budget try that missed.A Balanced Budget Is a Moral Argument Before It Is an Accounting OneBorrowing against people who cannot yet vote is a question of fairness before it is arithmetic, and only some budget rules actually bind.Eisenhower's farewell address gave two warnings and Republicans remember oneEveryone quotes the military-industrial complex line, but the same speech warned about captured science policy and mortgaging the grandchildren with debt.Why Your State Cannot Print Money the Way Washington DoesWashington runs deficit after deficit while nearly every state must balance its operating budget. That is a free civics lesson, with real limits.Silent Cal said little and ran one of the loudest budget records in historyCoolidge made restraint a governing philosophy, from the Boston police strike to the federal ledger. His record deserves praise and an honest critique.