Does Anyone Have a Budget?

Politics as usual and legislative anarchy in Congress

Seven competing budgets. Flocks of nuisance amendments proposed for the sole reason of forcing opponents to cast embarrassing "no" votes. In this spirit of politics as usual and collective irresponsibility. Congress last week confronted one of its gravest duties: crafting a budget resolution that would provide a set of spending, revenue and deficit targets for the next year.

The Senate did, finally, produce a budget, approved Friday by a vote of 49 to 43. It estimates federal spending in fiscal 1983 at $784 billion; revenues at...

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