Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Congress set budgets, not Presidents?
The president often submits a budget, but when it comes right down to it, it's the House of Representatives that holds responsibility. But I really don't think either party can take responsibility for the times when they lucked into a less miserable economic situation. It's what happens under duress that defines men, and this latest little debacle illustrates excellently how little difference there is between the two - a controversy over whether to cut 6 billion or 38 billion (or even *gasp* one hundred billion!).... from a 9
trillion dollar budget, and then go on to argue about whether or not to raise our
seventeen trillion (that's 17,000,000,000,000) dollar debt ceiling. We're just polishing doorknobs on the titanic at this point.
What's scary, is how our elected officials are acting now even makes Dubya and his republican majority, once criticized for "spending like drunken democrats," look fiscally reserved by comparison! We've gone into full blown clueless-idiot-insane mode here. We spend a huge chunk of our budget just paying off the interest on the debt we owe the chinese just so they can turn that money right around and lend it to us again. How people aren't charging up the capitol steps with a battering ram and guillotine as we speak, I can't explain.
Actually, I can. Bread and circuses... or in our case, stimulus checks and reality television.