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ORIGINAL: Thadius
Again you keep ignoring who set the spending limits and balanced budget during Clinton's term.  Let me give ya a quick hint... Contract with America. More to the point do a search for The Fiscal Responsibility Act, and balanced budged amendment.

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Line Item Veto

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ORIGINAL: cloudboy

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Line Item Veto

I would be in favor of a constitutional amendment to reinstate this. It definitely helped Clinton streamline federal spending.

One thing Thadius alludes to is the combination of a Democratic President and Republican Congress works well to gridlock federal expansion. Clinton vetoed Republican tax cut schemes and when first in in office he raised taxes. Republican fringe projects get voteod and Democratic fringe projects don't see the light of day.

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

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ORIGINAL: Thadius
Again you keep ignoring who set the spending limits and balanced budget during Clinton's term.  Let me give ya a quick hint... Contract with America. More to the point do a search for The Fiscal Responsibility Act, and balanced budged amendment.

Bullshit.

The budget control process was in place in 1993 not in 1995 when the Contract on America yahoos got control of the house.

The major piece of budget control the GOP passed when they controlled the House was the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 which was promptly ruled unconstitutional.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act is an unconstitutional bit of showboating introduced to Congress last year and had nothing whatever to do with a balanced budget in the last half of the nineties.

The balanced budget ammendment has never been retified and once again had nothing to do with the actual balanced budget under discussion.

As to the GOP's control of the legislative and executive branch and budget control you need to explain why they allowed Budget Enforcement Act to expire in 2002.

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The lack of any enforcement mechanism in current proposals to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget could result in the transfer of power over fundamental political questions of taxing and spending to the courts. This would represent a substantial reordering of our basic constitutional structure.
       Before resorting to the drastic step of amending the Constitution, Congress should explore other reasonable alternatives, including line item veto legislation.

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7. Congress could waive these requirements "for any fiscal year in which a declaration of war is in effect" or "for any fiscal year in which the United States faces an imminent and serious military threat to national security and is so declared by a joint resolution, adopted by a majority of the whole number of each House, which becomes law." Id. § 4. As with S.J. Res. 1, additional sections would provide for implementing legislation; define receipts and outlays in broad general terms; and provide that the amendment shall take effect no earlier than 2002.

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ORIGINAL: Thadius

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

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ORIGINAL: Thadius
Again you keep ignoring who set the spending limits and balanced budget during Clinton's term.  Let me give ya a quick hint... Contract with America. More to the point do a search for The Fiscal Responsibility Act, and balanced budged amendment.

Bullshit.

The budget control process was in place in 1993 not in 1995 when the Contract on America yahoos got control of the house.

The major piece of budget control the GOP passed when they controlled the House was the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 which was promptly ruled unconstitutional.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act is an unconstitutional bit of showboating introduced to Congress last year and had nothing whatever to do with a balanced budget in the last half of the nineties.

The balanced budget ammendment has never been retified and once again had nothing to do with the actual balanced budget under discussion.

As to the GOP's control of the legislative and executive branch and budget control you need to explain why they allowed Budget Enforcement Act to expire in 2002.

To your first remark... there was not a balanced budge proposed under Clinton until '95  which he promptly vetoed.... 

Clinton's first budget called for an astronomical tax hike of $220 billion that Democrats in Congress increased to $240 billion. Clinton's first three budgets -- released in 1993, 1994, and 1995 (for FYs 1994, 1995, and 1996 respectively), left deficits of $241.4 billion, $201.2 billion, and $194 billion by his own estimation (which CBO scored at $228.5 billion, $206.2 billion, and $276 billion respectively).  Let's also not forget about the systematic gutting of the military (I have first hand knowledge of that one).

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1995/roll051.xml
http://www.justice.gov/olc/jtecon.95.8.htm
http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/v5.htm 

I know it is easy to forget such things...

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Oh to answer your last point..

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The lack of any enforcement mechanism in current proposals to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget could result in the transfer of power over fundamental political questions of taxing and spending to the courts. This would represent a substantial reordering of our basic constitutional structure.
       Before resorting to the drastic step of amending the Constitution, Congress should explore other reasonable alternatives, including line item veto legislation.

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7. Congress could waive these requirements "for any fiscal year in which a declaration of war is in effect" or "for any fiscal year in which the United States faces an imminent and serious military threat to national security and is so declared by a joint resolution, adopted by a majority of the whole number of each House, which becomes law." Id. § 4. As with S.J. Res. 1, additional sections would provide for implementing legislation; define receipts and outlays in broad general terms; and provide that the amendment shall take effect no earlier than 2002.

I call your bullshit, and raise you a not likely.
Thadius

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ORIGINAL: Thadius
Those "unsourced quotes" were included in the links I provided...

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 2 of the links show that your claim that the balanced budget amendment was first introduced last year to be FALSE.

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I didn't realize you get to dictate the debate, and not provide proof to your claims.   Before '97 there was not a balanced budged since '69 (even when one looks at the '84 attempts).  I have no clue where you get that there was such in '93.  Please cite a source.  As I showed the CBO showed that the deficits were not done away with before the Repubs took control of congress under Clinton, and actually increased over his first 3 years.

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Just to play along though, I see you claim it is okay for "The first few years of the Clinton administration was also dealing with the early 90's recession and deficit spending isn't so bad during a recession as government action can be used to shorten and mitigate the severity of the recession."

Uhm... how do you describe the dot com bubble bust, the Enron debacle, and the other fun activities that took place during the first year or 2 of the Bush administraion?  I know just minor instances... Your hypocracy sometimes knows no bounds.

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

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ORIGINAL: Thadius
Those "unsourced quotes" were included in the links I provided...

And how was anybody supposed to know that?

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 2 of the links show that your claim that the balanced budget amendment was first introduced last year to be FALSE.

I never said any such thing. Retract this.
My fault... you claimed that "The Fiscal Responsibility Act is an unconstitutional bit of showboating introduced to Congress last year and had nothing whatever to do with a balanced budget in the last half of the nineties. "  It was actually introduced in 1982.

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I didn't realize you get to dictate the debate, and not provide proof to your claims.   Before '97 there was not a balanced budged since '69 (even when one looks at the '84 attempts).  I have no clue where you get that there was such in '93.  Please cite a source.  As I showed the CBO showed that the deficits were not done away with before the Repubs took control of congress under Clinton, and actually increased over his first 3 years.

The 1993 budget was a Bush I budget, fiscal year starts in September and Clinton wasn't sworn in until January 1993.

I further never claimed the budget was balanced in 1993, since I actually know which administration signed that budget.

Tha tax hike,s as was made clear at the time, were to produce more revenue which was a basic part of dumping the bullshit supply side stuff that did so much damage in the 80's. Claim it wasn't part of balancing the budget all you want but the facts are clear. The budget surpluses of the late 90's were never more than the tax hikes generated.

The first 3 budgets presented by Clinton (fiscal years 94,95, and 96) were not balanced, I have already provided that info it is easily available at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).. You responded with

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Bullshit.

The budget control process was in place in 1993 not in 1995 when the Contract on America yahoos got control of the house.

 
To my claim that "Again you keep ignoring who set the spending limits and balanced budget during Clinton's term." 

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Just to play along though, I see you claim it is okay for "The first few years of the Clinton administration was also dealing with the early 90's  recession and deficit spending isn't so bad during a recession as government action can be used to shorten and mitigate the severity of the recession."  As long as it it done by a Democratic administration, because otherwise we are going to cry bloody murder.
Uhm... how do you describe the dot com bubble bust, the Enron debacle, and the other fun activities that took place during the first year or 2 of the Bush administraion?  I know just minor instances... Your hypocracy sometimes knows no bounds.

How the feds could have been involved in the dot com bubble is beyond me. People can buy stock in businesses without ways to make money if they want.

As to Enron, are you trying to blame a private company keeping two sets of books on the POTUS? Now there is some blame to go to the feds and primarily the state governments who bought into the stupid idea of deregulating the electricty industry.  But that Enron collapsed? The accounting scam brought down one of the biggest accounting firms out there and you expect that Clinton personally or his administration would have somehow gotten hodl of the real books? Please.

But what eiter event had to do with the early 90's recession is beyond me.

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ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

Federal fiscal year starts Oct.1st...the president submits their budget no later than the first Monday of the following February IIRC.  Inauguration Day is Jan 20th.

So when exactly did Bush submit the 1993 budget?

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ORIGINAL: Thadius
My point was that those things that happened in the first 2 years of the current administration seriously threatened the economy, and you are blowing them off like they were just little things.  I didn't lay blame at either administration's feet.  Oh and those are just a couple of the incidents, not even taking into account the impact that 9/11 had on the economy (air travel, and other industries).  Some economists suggest that we were coming out of the recession in the fall of '92 and entering troubled waters in 2000.  But hell what do I know... I will just use your words... "recession and deficit spending isn't so bad during a recession as government action can be used to shorten and mitigate the severity of the recession".   Please show me any administration that has not run up deficits while at war...

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

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ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

Federal fiscal year starts Oct.1st...the president submits their budget no later than the first Monday of the following February IIRC.  Inauguration Day is Jan 20th.

So when exactly did Bush submit the 1993 budget?

The federal fiscal year starts on Oct. 1 the preceding year. The 1993 federal budget began Oct. 1 1992 and was certainly submitted sometime before then.
http://www.rules.house.gov/Archives/98-325.pdf

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Fiscal Year 2009 Budget (FY09)
Transmitted to Congress on February 4, 2008. Covers the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2008.

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

We're not at war. We're occupying a couple of countries. We've definitely run budget surpluses during occupations and we shouldn't be running deficits this high even during a war.

I never attcked Bush for any slowdown from 9/11 or the recession during the early part of his term. Personally 9/11 had an impact but before that I was doing great.


P.S. I've now checked twice and the only refernces I can find Fiscal Responsibility Act prior to 2007 are for acts by that name in other countries so I'll need a reference to this bill being introduced in 1982.

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ORIGINAL: Thadius

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

We're not at war. We're occupying a couple of countries. We've definitely run budget surpluses during occupations and we shouldn't be running deficits this high even during a war.

I never attcked Bush for any slowdown from 9/11 or the recession during the early part of his term. Personally 9/11 had an impact but before that I was doing great.


P.S. I've now checked twice and the only refernces I can find Fiscal Responsibility Act prior to 2007 are for acts by that name in other countries so I'll need a reference to this bill being introduced in 1982.

Try looking up TEFRA aka Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act...