Budget Arithmetic

My vote for blog passage of the year. A marvel of realism in few words.

I find US politics puzzling. Doesn't your constitution say that a bill becomes law only if passed by both houses of Congress?

So if the Republicans control the House, and the Democrats the Senate, and the Republicans, but not Democrats, want to outlaw ballet, it doesn't get outlawed. Of course, if the Democrats, but not Republicans, want to outlaw auto racing, they might strike up a deal to outlaw both ballet and auto racing, but while I'm sure this sort of things happens occasionally, it doesn't seem to be the norm. I assume that's because the public wouldn't stand for such deals, with lawmakers voting for laws that they actually oppose.

So why the problem with the budget? Why aren't programs funded only if both the House and the Senate favour funding them? I assume the public somehow looks more favourably on lawmakers voting to fund things they think shouldn't be funded, but why? In particular, why can't the Republican-controlled House just pass a budget funding only what they want funded (and, let's suppose, nothing that the Democrats object to funding), and tell the Senate and the President that that's it - pass and sign it, or there's no funding for anything.

Radford:
Under current law, spending on federal welfare programs (about 60% of the federal budget) will continue until the law is changed. The other 40% (about half military, half miscellaneous) must be specifically budgeted for each year.

In theory, the Republicans could refuse to do any annual appropriations until the Democrats agreed to change the law to reduce or slow the growth of programmatic spending.

I doubt this would go over well with voters, though. Really, this is probably more political theater than anything else. The Republicans had the chance to cut spending from 2003-2006 and chose instead to increase it significantly.

Many voters will say they want nonspecific cuts, but only a small minority of voters will endorse any realistic plan for reducing federal spending if you ask them about specifics.

What TA said.

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