Federal Budge and Debt
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The United States government is the reflection of a not-so-delicate fusion of private and public interests. As such, the monies collected and spent by the federal government stand as a central political issue to those interests. Since our country's inception, it has been a structural fixture of the American political scene that the party or interest, movement or person controlling the federal government's spending also exerts a dominant influence over the nation's social agenda. However, a crisis now looms over the political process, threatening that status quo; it is a crisis that asks the body politic this question: Why, since the presidency of Richard M. Nixon (circa 1970), have twenty-five years of successive federal budgets been so doggedly in the red that the country is now five trillion dollars in debt? According to one school of thinking on the matter, runaway social programs must shoulder the lion's share of responsibility for this liability. Other critics of federal spending blame excessive regulation for being a brake on the American economy and, therefore, responsible for a shortfall in government revenues. Still others, disillusioned with the political process, fault America's two major parties, Republican and Democrat, accusing both of spending more time fighting between themselves than in providing responsible economic legislation. Other arguments are offered as well; still, on examination it can be seen that, indeed, mismanaged social programs, ill-con
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I effort, Franklin Roosevelt's successive administrations operated on the belief that capital investment could justify accruing large federal debt - if that investment resulted in protection of national interests and improvements in infrastructure that would result in long-term gains for the country greater than the interest-due on the debt (Heilbroner A23).
The crucial point of such "deficit-spending" lies in one's interpretation of the term "manageable" and how one defines what constitutes a beneficial "investment."
The federal budget is comprised of two type of spending: discretionary and mandatory.
DISCRETIONARY - one-third of all Federal spending. This is the money the president and Congress must decide to spend each year. It includes money for such programs as housing and education, defense and foreign aid.
MANDATORY - two-thirds of all Federal Spending. This is money the Federal Government appends automatically to the budget - unless the President and Congress change the laws that govern it. It includes "entitlements" such as Social Security. It also includes interest on the national debt, which the Government pays to those who buy U.S. securities ("Introduction to U.S. Government").
Note: despite it
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Approximate Word count = 2112
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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