Talk:Gramm–Rudman–Hollings Balanced Budget Act

Re "late 1990's": George H. W. Bush stopped being president in 1993, and George W. Bush was not president until 2001. So how could either President George Bush have been responsible for spending policy in the late 1990s?

Simple. Read closely:

However, those balanced budgets did not actually emerge until the late 1990s after significant income tax rate increases under Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton.

Note how it says the late 1990s were after increases under the Presidents, not that that's when the increases were. Make more sense now? -- John Owens 12:15 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. I can now see the original intent. Reworded to:

However, those balanced budgets did not actually emerge until the late 1990s after the significant income tax rate increases under Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton had had time to take effect.

The Anome 12:25 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

There are now two pages on Gramm-Rudman-Hollings: This one and Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act. They should be consolidated under "Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985." Dauster 14:01, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

--Icolson 22:48, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Apparently this initiative was abandoned. The articles are discussing the same act, so combine them both under the act name - "Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act" There's not much more you need to know than what the two articles contain.

--User:kanaugle 01/24/2008 12:42 I think the discussion misses the point that the budget was balanced using other than generally accepted accounting practices. Information available from Treasury Direct shows that the total U.S. Govt. debt increased every year from 1987 to 1999 and beyond. Thus the budget was not "really" balanced.

Also, the mixing of balanced budget with a rather generic statement on taxes IMO violates NPOV because it points to partisan spin over how tax increases/cuts affect actual revenue, but does not really address whether revenue and spending are balanced.

I think the only appropriate statement is that it is not clear that this act achieved its intended result of actually balancing the federal budget.

Ciao!

The article states: Balanced budgets did not actually emerge until the late 1990s; however, even these budgets were not balanced when including "off-budget" spending.

The second part of this statement is untrue. Both the on-budget and off-budget budgets of 1999 and 2000 were in surplus.

1999 on-budget receipts- $1,383,177,000,000 1999 on-budget outlays - $1,381,257,000,000 1999 on-budget surplus - 1,920,000,000

1999 off-budget receipts - $444,468,000,000 1999 off-budget outlays - $320,778,000,000 1999 off-budget surplus - $123,690,000,000

1999 total budget receipts - $1,827,645,000,000 1999 total budget outlays - $1,702,035,000,000 1999 totlal budget surplus - $125,610,000,000

2000 on-budget receipts- $1,544,837,000,000 2000 on-budget outlays - $1,458,451,000,000 2000 on-budget surplus - 86,422,000,000

2000 off-budget receipts - $480,584,000,000 2000 off-budget outlays - $330,765,000,000 2000 off-budget surplus - $149,819,000,000

2000 total budget receipts - $2,025,457,000,000 2000 total budget outlays - $1,789,216,000,000 2000 totlal budget surplus - $236,241,000,000

Source - White house office of Management and budget Historical Tables: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/hist.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.68.134.1 (talk) 12:57, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Right. The last bit of this entry "even these budgets were not balanced when including off-budget spending" is not true. The overall unified federal budget was in surplus four years in a row in the late 1990s. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.82.213.69 (talk) 15:58, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

More information needed

The article says "Congress enacted a reworked version of the law in 1987. Gramm-Rudman failed, however, to prevent large budget deficits."

Please add more information about this "reworked version," and the reason why it failed to shrink the deficit. Did Congress simply violate the "reworked version" of the law? 71.219.240.123 (talk) 00:10, 9 May 2010 (UTC)