DEMOS BLAME BUSH FOR RECESSION DEMOS STARTED
etherzone.com
By: Ed Henry
Does anyone know why the federal government starts its fiscal year on October first? I've tried to find out, and the closest I can come to an explanation is that back in the old days when we were an agrarian nation this was the time when all the crops had been harvested. It was safe to estimate revenue.
There's nothing to say that fiscal years can't begin and end whenever an organization wants, but it has some dire effects on a democratically elected government, particularly when we hold our national elections in November.
Every year, the government is supposed to establish the next year's budget before the end of the present fiscal year, before September thirtieth. Sometimes they fail to do so because of party differences, but even then it's not a major problem since the government has a mechanism called "continuing resolution" that comes into play. Despite what the media does to generate fear that the government might shutdown for lack of a budget, that's an extremely unlikely scenario because this mechanism allows the government to continue under the previous year's budget until a new one can be agreed upon. In 1995-96 we had shutdowns because of refusals to raise the debt ceiling, not budget problems. The government can operate all year under one continuing resolution after another.
We didn't have any problem with the budget for fiscal 2001. It was established and approved by the Clinton Administration before the fiscal year began on October 1st, 2000, but George W. Bush wasn't in Washington at the time.
Assuming office in January after a two-month election debacle and controversy, George W. Bush took over a budget already in the fourth month of fiscal 2001. One entire quarter had passed. Without a drastic upheaval to the established budget the new president was condemned to live with what the previous administration and Congress had already established. Does it then seem fair to criticize a new president for something he had nothing to do with?
That’s what the democrats are doing. Now, they are complaining that things didn't go as well under the Clinton budget that ended September 30, 2001, three weeks after the World Trade Center attack. The fiscal year ended with a mere $127 billion surplus. Way below the surplus of fiscal 2000 that yielded $237 billion in tax overcharges. The liberal press has been decrying the money loss ever since.
Going right to work on his own budget for 2002, President Bush had managed approval of the 2002 budget by May, only five months after taking office. Fulfilling a campaign promise, that budget initiated income tax reductions of $1.35 trillion over the next ten years. The democrats didn't like that either.
Immediately, the democrats started complaining about how Bush wasn't doing anything for taxpayers this year, fiscal 2001. The year where we were still using their budget and where they themselves had failed to include or even mention any kind of tax break whatsoever for people who had just paid $87 billion in income tax overcharges under the Clinton administration during fiscal 2000—no doubt, just an oversight.
Once an immediate $300 one-time rebate for all income tax payers was suggested, Tom Dashle and Dick Gephardt started trotting out single mothers who hadn't paid any income tax at all to tell national television audiences how little such a rebate would mean to them.
Some constantly boisterous democrats like Charles Rangel and Jerrod Nadler (both of New York) even started to boast about how, if taxes were going to be cut, the democrats could come up with a better plan to reduce payroll taxes. That talk didn't last long once these nitwits soon realized they were talking about killing the goose that lays their golden eggs, the granddaddy slush fund of them all. Social Security came through with $95.4 billion in extra money for them in fiscal 2000 and was in the process of bringing them another $98.7 billion at the time, for a grand total of $194.1 billion in the last two years alone.
Now, after it's clear the nation is in a recession that started two years ago and unemployment is pushing the six percent mark, these same democrats are starting to blame it all on the Bush administration and his foolhardy tax cuts. If we would just let them keep the money, they would know exactly how to spend it.
It seems that a lot of this could be avoided if we could pinpoint blame a little easier, if the government's fiscal year started in June or July instead of October. A newly elected president would have time to submit his own budget without overlap by the previous administration. And it would sure be a lot easier to finish out the last six months of the old budget, especially with the new guys having so much to do with appointments and getting their feet on the ground.
Meanwhile, cult politics will continue with arguments pro and con with the democrats again proving that when they set out to build a firing squad they form a circle. |
