Ask a family or a business about their budget and they will say that the goal of a budget is to balance income with expenditures in an organized and disciplined way. The emphasis on balanced, organized and disciplined in budgeting is essential and yet the federal budget has consistently run deficits since 2001. In fact, the last completely balanced federal budget occured in 1835 under President Andrew Jackson. The history of federal budgeting reflects the economic conditions during those periods. During the 1920s, there were 10 surplus budgets that because of the country's booming economy. … [Read more...]