WEEK 14: The President and the Budget

This last week we looked at the budget process and the role of the president, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Congress and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in developing a Fiscal Year (FY) budget for the U.S. government. Along the way we discovered that a budget simply determines government activities for the coming year, specifies when they will take place and puts a price tag on them. We campared the annual budget deficit or surplus for the years 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2007 and the increase in the Gross National Debt and the Annual Interest on that Debt over those years. THe FY 2007 budget was examined and controllable outlays were defined and identified and contrasted with uncontrollable outlays which include the various government entitlement programs.



The homework assignment requires the student to review the actual U.S. Government Budget totals for FY 2008 that ended September 30, 2008. You can view the Joint Statement of Henry M. Paulson, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury, and Jim Nussle, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, on Budget Results for Fiscal Year 2008 at this site and answer questions 1-4 of your homework assignment. Questions 5 & 6 are answered by reading the two articles attached to your homework assignment sheet entitled: "What Would Leo XIII Say About the Social Security System" and "Fiddling While Social Security Burns".