Playing games with America’s finances
According to what little I can find, the last full-fledged U. S. Fiscal
Year budget was signed by President Bill Clinton in August 1997! An omnibus spending bill was reluctantly signed by newly-elected President
Barack Obama in April
2009, though that legisla- tion was not a FY budget.
Since then, congress and the White House have passed countless continuing resolutions (CR) to keep the government funded, but have not passed a FY budget.
Many local and state governments are required to have balanced budgets, i.e. they can’t go into debt. Almost all state and local governments that aren’t required to have balanced budgets are in debt, some dreadfully so.
The federal government has had to “shutdown” ten times (counting this year) due to lack of funding (1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1995, 2013, and 2018). The shutdown in 1995 (twice that year) lasted a total of 26 days. Shutdown lasted 16 days in 2013.
I suspect the vast majority of working Americans have “bankbook” budgets, i.e. if there’s money in the bank, we can buy stuff; and if there isn’t, we’ll have to wait. Many working Americans find they have to buy emergency stuff when there’s no money in the bankbook, so they load up credit cards fully intending to pay off these emergency expenditures as quickly as possible. There is nothing comparable between working Americans managing their budgets and Washington managing federal revenue and spending.
In the past two decades, no one in Washington has actually done anything to balance the federal budget, or even to manage revenue and spending responsibly. President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich were the last leaders who formed coalitions to balance real FY budgets.
Americans had become politically polarized by election of 2000. We remained extremely polarized until 911 when enemies attacked us and brought many of us back together. That unifying experience didn’t last long, and in 2008 Americans were even more polarized when we elected Barack Obama president and gave complete control of Washington to the Democrats. That’s when federal spending exploded and the powers that be in Washington essentially doubled our national debt in 8 years.
In 2016, unbeknownst to national media and the political and bureaucratic establishment in Washington, working Americans realized Washington was totally out of control. Voters were given
two choices: 1. More-of-thesame Hillary; or, 2. Drain-theswamp Trump.
Last week national media
led with headlines about Trump’s language, racism, weight, diet, and unfitness for office. In the meantime, the House passed another CR that would fund as many areas of government as Democrats and
Republicans could agree on. According to Senate rules, to keep the government funded senators had to pass this CR with 60 votes, meaning at least 9 Democratic senators had to vote ‘yes.’ That would keep
the government funded for a few more weeks until congress could pass more CRs as well as new funding bills to keep the government running.
Managing finances is not as easy in Washington as it is for
working Americans. No one in Washington faces anything harsher for mismanaging our nation’s finances than facing voters every 2, 4, or 6 years. Voters will get to vote for 468 or 469 representatives and
senators in about ten months. Who in Washington is serious about managing America’s finances? Who is playing political games with the media, lobbyists, and key constituencies for personal gain?