President Joe Biden’s White House recently delivered to Congress its “Mid-Session Review” of the federal budget. The bottom line in this late July document was bad: The deficit for 2024 is projected to be $1.87 trillion and the nation likely will be $37 trillion in debt by the end of the year.
This news arrived just one week after the 50th birthday of the law that created the congressional budget process. President Richard M. Nixon hailed the Control Budget and Impoundment Act’s passage in his July 12, 1974 signing statement.
“I commend the Congress for this landmark legislation,” Nixon said. “… This bill will allow the Congress to step up to full and equal responsibility for controlling Federal expenditures.”
President Richard Nixon (seated) signs a major budget process bill on July 12, 1974. (AP Photo)
The law significantly upgraded Congress’s procedures for taxing and spending. Hitherto, as Nixon observed, Congress would pass spending bills with “no system for establishing priorities relating to an overall spending goal.” That mad …