2 pieces of good budget news

President Obama announced today that he thinks Congress should put back into effect "pay as you go" provisions into our budget laws.

Boy is this overdue.

I wrote about this what? A year or more ago?

The Republicans, of all people--the ones who said they were for small government and small government spending (yeah, right)--took "pay as you go" out of our laws during---when else?--the George W. Bush/Republican rule years.

"Pay as you go" means, as you may already know, that our government wasn't supposed to create anything it was to spend money on unless it had a source the money was to come from.

Want some new school program, Senator?

No problem. Tell us where the money is coming from and you may get it.

And it can come from a new tax--if you can get it to pass--or from closing down some other program or whatever but the final result of this is that THEY COULD NOT FURTHER DEFICIT SPEND.

And it was a great idea, this "pay-go" as it was called.

Doesn't it seem logical?

It's how you and I have to live, isn't it?

Nearly unbelievably, the Republicans did away with it. They just couldn't spend enough money, as it turns out.

The other bit of good budget news today is that some of the banks who took money from the government earlier this year have been cleared to pay it back. As it turns out, it comes to around $68 billion--one-third of the total amount given out.

Great news, indeed.

If this keeps up, with banks returning money to the government and President Obama setting us up for more responsible and, hopefully, less government spending, the Republicans have likely set themselves up to be irrelevant for the next few decades, at least.

Here's hoping.

Links:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Calls-for-Restoring-Statutory-Pay-As-You-Go-Requirements/
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/09/obama.paygo/index.html?section=cnn_latest