As many Federal departments and agencies lurch into an era of running without funds, the leaders of both parties of Congress are spending less and less time searching for a compromise to balance the budget, and more and more time deciding how to use it to their advantage on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, money is easily borrowed to pay for government overhead. In an attempt to change this, on June 29, Congress voted in favor of HConRes67 that called for a 7-year plan to balance the Federal Budget by the year 2002 (Hager 1899). This would be done by incorporating $89 billion in spending cuts by 2002, with a projected 7-year tax cut of $245 billion. If this plan were implemented, in the year 2002, the U.S. government would have the first balanced budget since 1969.
There is doubt by citizens that a balanced budget will become reality. A recent Gallop Poll from January, 1996 showed the budget as the #1 concern among taxpayers, but 4/5 of those interviewed said they doubt the GOP will do the job (Holding 14). Meanwhile, an ABC poll from
November reported that over 70% of those polled disapprove of the
current performance by Congress, and most blamed politicians for failure to
take action (Cloud 3709). These accusations of failure to follow through
come with historical proof that Congress and Clinton have failed to
compromise and resolve the issue. After all, current budget plans are
dependent on somewhat unrealistic predictions of avoiding such
catastrophes as recession, national disasters, etc., and include minor
loopholes. History has shown that every budget agreement that has failed
was too lax. One might remember the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings bill that
attempted to balance the budget, but left too many exempti...