Chapter 14 The Politics of Taxing and Spending

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Chapter 14The Politics of Taxing and Spending

• Congress, the President and the Budget

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Introduction

• Who pays, who benefits?
• What is a budget?
• Taxes and Expenditures.
• Budget deficit.
• National debt.

3
Revenue Sources

• Income tax
• Social insurance taxes
• Excise taxes
• Borrowing
• Taxes and public policy
• Loopholes
• Tax expendituresrevenue losses due to loopholes
• Tax reduction
• Tax reform

4
Federal Expenditures

• Pressures on government
• National Security
• Social services
• Debt service
• Incrementalism
• Entitlements

5
Budgetary Process

• Players
• Interest Groups
• Agencies
• Congressional committees
• Office of Management and Budget
• President
• Congressional Budget Office
• Issue oriented committees
• Appropriations Committees and sub-committees
• Congress as a whole
• General Accounting Office

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Budget continued

• President
• Congress
• 1974 Reform
• Budget Resolution
• Reconciliation
• Authorization bill
• Appropriations bill

7
Continued

• Reform

Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act Deficit
spending Balancing the budget Controlling spending
8
National Debt
9
National Debt

• 5,000,000,000,000.00 to 6,000,000,000,000.00.
• A stack of 1,000 bills that equals a million
  dollars is about 8 inches.
• A stack of 1,000 bills that equals one billion
  dollars would be 8,000 inches high or 650 feet
  high. Taller than the St. Louis Arch.
• A trillion dollars of 1,000 bills will fill
  Wrigley Field.