It won't be adopted, so what good is Trump's budget?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Catherine Rampell

The Washington Post

Fair enough: President Trump’s heartless and whackadoodle budget, released on Monday, will never actually become law. Even when his party had unified control of government, he couldn’t get Capitol Hill to take major portions of his budget terribly seriously.

Still, a president’s budget plan is a statement of his priorities. And based on this latest statement, Trump’s priorities continue to be redistributing wealth ever upward, from poor to rich, and selling the public more fantasies and lies.

Federal deficits have widened immensely under Trump’s leadership. This is striking not only because he promised fiscal responsibility — at one time even pledging to eliminate the national debt within eight years — but also because it’s a historical anomaly. Deficits usually narrow when the economy is good and we’re not engaged in a major war.

Trump’s own policies are to blame for this aberration. Specifically, the 2017 tax law, which gave two-thirds of its benefits to the top income quintile last year, added $1.9 trillion to deficits over the coming decade. A grand-bargain spending bill last year that increased funding for both defense and nondefense programs — here the Democrats deserve a share of the blame — also spilled plenty of red ink.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/rampell-it-wont-be-adopted-so-what-good-is-trumps-budget/

[Locutusofborg]

1. Why presidents submit budgets

Even though they are always “dead on arrival” when the House is controlled by the opposition party.
In 1921, the Budget and Accounting Act moved many of the preliminary budget-setting functions from the House to the President and the Executive Branch. The act established the Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget) as an Executive Branch agency that works with the President on drafting a budget; it also established the General Accounting Office (now the Government Accounting Office) as an auditor reporting to Congress.

Most importantly, the 1921 Act required the President to submit a proposed annual budget for the federal government to Congress, which added to the considerable power allocated to the Executive Branch.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. More talking points for Trump's

reelection propaganda machine at Fake Noise.