Mr. Carter,
While it's true that someone needs to return to school you seem to be a little confused on who it is. ....
Randy Cuberly
To the site administrator, If appropriate, I have no problem with you moving this portion of the thread to an appropriate forum, it's just that I don't know how to do it. I appreciate your patience and support. Thanks in advance!
Hello Mr. Cuberly! To respond to your writings, allow me to respond, I am a former Baltimore City Police Officer, retired USAF Weapons Officer (21 yrs), and about as conservative as can be without buying into the "republican hype" (our courts won't even seat me for jury duty, wonder why?
). All that aside, I love and enjoy a good clean and even spirited discussion but .... Please, Please agree with me and let us keep this a civil, educational discussion versus retreating to personal attacks, at any level, and I hope others who comment will agree or disagree freely but, again, not allow the comments to become personal under any circumstance; principally because there's not one of us who can wave the "magic wand" and fix the problems one way or the other.
That said, as I remember my high school and college American Government studies, I may be wrong BUT .... the Constitution of the United States directs, authorizes, mandates, empowers the Congress with the responsibility for the national budget:
http://www.constitution.org/constit_.htm(Article I, Section 8 enumerates the powers delegated to the legislature. Financially, and as written ONLY Congress has the power to tax, borrow, pay debt and provide for the common defense and the general welfare; to regulate commerce, bankruptcies, and coin money. To regulate internal affairs, it has the power to regulate and govern military forces and militias, suppress insurrections and repel invasions. It is to provide for naturalization, standards of weights and measures, post offices and roads, and patents; to directly govern the federal district and cessions of land by the states for forts and arsenals.) We both know there has been a, shall we say, blending of the powers and authorities but the COnstitution very clearly enumerates the power of Congress over the national budget.
Although there have been some changes made (what I believe may have been unconstitutional measures introduced a long time ago), I'm sure there were executive, legislative and judicial agreements that necessitated the changes specifically the transferral of budget "proposal" authority to the executive branch. Please see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Management_and_Budget .... The Bureau of the Budget, created in 1921 by President Harding. The bureau, for the first time, placed formal restrictions on the spending of government funds. The Bureau of the Budget later became the Office of Management and Budget was moved to the Executive Office of the President in 1939, and subsequently reorganized into the Office of Management and Budget in 1970 during the Nixon administration.
As it stands, the OMB (
https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Overview) puts together a "proposed" budget to support the President's agenda. There's not one thing that I could find in any of my albeit limited research that removes the Constitutional requirement, authority and or responsibility (unless it is some kind of legislative agreement buried within the deep recesses of the legal construct that neuters the 535 members, all elected to represent the interest of the nation.
As for your position that the budget presented by the President through the OMB were flawed, allow me to pose the question: With whom do the the OMB staff discuss information and gather data before submitting their budget proposals? I have a cousin (GS-15) who works for the OMB and has to deal with a multitude of meetings with congressmen, congressional staffers and lobbyists before she can even put pencil to paper, either for or against a particular budgetary item and it has to be congressionally endorsed, signed or initialed, through multiple offices before it can be incorporated into the "proposed Presidential Budget. Please see:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/contributorsAgain, please review the following:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Management_and_Budget .... "These staff have dual responsibility for both management and budgetary issues, as well as responsibility for giving expert advice on all aspects relating to their programs. Each year they review federal agency budget requests and help decide what resource requests will be sent to Congress as part of the president's budget. They perform in-depth program evaluations using the Program Assessment Rating Tool, review proposed regulations, agency testimony, analyze pending legislation, and oversee the aspects of the president's management agenda including agency management scorecards."
In conclusion, please don't think that the budget is the "President's Budget" regardless of who sits in the "Big Chair" (from Nixon to Obama). It is something that has already been discussed, hashed, conferenced, and coordinated on by every member, all 535, long before the document hits the printer. The present system only serves to give plausible deniability to the House and Senate members because, in reality, the OMB SHOULD belong in their camp: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/legislative-affairs .... "The Legislative Reference Division has the important role of being the central clearing house across the federal government for proposed legislation or testimony by federal officials. It distributes proposed legislation and testimony to all relevant federal reviewers and distils the comments into a consensus opinion of the Administration about the proposal. They are also responsible for writing an Enrolled Bill Memorandum to the president once a bill is presented by both bodies of Congress for the president's signature. The Enrolled Bill Memorandum details the particulars of the bill, opinions on the bill from relevant federal departments, and an overall opinion about whether the bill should be signed into law or vetoed. They also issue Statements of Administration Policy that let Congress know the White House's official position on proposed legislation."
Just for grins, I'll address the military budget issue at a later time especially since I had a "fun-filled" tour dealing with exactly that .... the congressmen, the staffers, the lobbyists, the weapons planners, the manufacturers, some members of the intelligence community .... talk about a uniformed cluster f_-_-!!!
and everybody's "right" and absolutely must have their appropriation authorized now!! My response ....
Topic: December 7, 1941 (Read 8685 times)