Government Spending & Budget
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 $894 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 exemptions, and was finally abandoned in 1990
(Weinberger 33).
So after a pain-staking trial for GOP Repu...