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Appropriations & Spending Bills blog
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.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.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.