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Making Ends Meet

In his book Making Ends Meet, Daniel P. Franklin addresses questions about the nature of the American economy today and its relationship to the budgeting process undertaken in Congress. To do this, Franklin examines the budget process for a single cycle, ending in 1992. Franklin holds that the process has changed and that the changes instituted in 1990 in particular altered the process and called many common practices into question in an era in which the deficit has become so large and so important. A balanced budget has been suggested as the means to bring the problem of the budget under control and to reduce the deficit, but Franklin suggests that a better method would be a form of line-item veto rather than a balanced-budget amendment. Even then, he is not suggesting that this is the solution to the problem, but what he says about the balanced budget approach is interesting.

At the present time, Americans are faced with the possibility of having both the line-item veto, passed since Franklin wrote his book, and a balanced-budget amendment as is being suggested by the current Republican leadership in Congress. Franklin makes a good argument for preferring the line-item veto over the balanced-budget amendment. He notes that the line-item veto is democratic while the balanced-budget amendment is antidemocratic and would subvert the checks and balances of the Constitution. The line-item veto, he says, "is wielded by political institutions subject to political control." The president must answer to voters for what he deletes or includes in the budget, and members of Congress will be subject to political pressure for what they decide on the same issues. A balanced-budget amendment, however, takes the pressure off everyone by forcing what they could all do anyway if they had the political will to do it. There is nothing preventing a balanced budget from being passed today except that decisions would have to be made that wou...

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Making Ends Meet. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 01:40, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1681855.html