CBO: Trump's budget doesn't balance federal ledger

See my comment in response to 1LT Sandy Annala above. Almost every budget has been "balanced". Sadly, they were balanced using overly optimistic expectations on revenues and overly pessimistic expectations on expenses.

There's theory and the of course, the real world and the world of make-believe. Our politicians live in a theoretical parallel universe where reality is just a concept.

I would like to see these government dweebs have to do a zero based budget and not be able to shift funds around. I have done budgets in private industry and while AD. Private industry does it right.

CPT Jack Durish - I totally agree it's a bureaucratic mess. I have no disagreement with anything you said. I will also tell you that all that bureaucracy, while not efficient, in it's own crazy way assists each branch move slow enough that the balance of powers manages to hold. Of course the civil servants have their own opinions, and moves to the whims of whatever party is in power, but they can't do it very quickly. The Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System itself has it's own timelines and makes budget changes difficult. Which sometimes is a good thing, and sometimes not. Government accounting is nothing like public accounting, so it's really not like writing a check, subtracting your number, then moving on, like the civilian world thinks it is. It would not be possible to assess big money changes, however, without some auditing body that at least predicts, based on history, how it will affect us, and that's why Congress depends on them. I think the CBO is best equipped to do that of any other organization I can think of (unless you can think of another). It may not be perfect, we may not always like their answers, but they can at least show you exactly how they got the answer. That's their sole purpose, not to make budgets or settle disputes between branches.

MCPO Roger Collins - I understand your point. Although you may want to see that, you aren't likely to. Government budgets and accounting are not anything like your budgets in private industry. Your AD budgets fed into the bureaucracy--you just didn't get to see it. At the unit level, you knew what you had, and you obligated it and subtracted and knew what you had left. You never saw the bigger picture on balancing Congressional adds, outlays, and money that could only be spent certain ways in certain years. It's not an easy system to understand, and I can see why the public doesn't understand why it's not like their own financial accounting. Efficiencies have been tried over the years (I think it was under Carter they had something called Zero Based Budgeting), but the reality of Congress spending money on things that benefit their own interests, even if it's something you don't think of benefit, sometimes adds to the inefficiency.

Now, that's funny, a government employee explaining efficiency

Some spasms are enjoyable SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth :^}

Capt Dwayne Conyers - Doubt this one would.