Which candidate is most likely to balance the budget?

[jIM_Ohio]

I am beginning to appreciate the economic benefits of Bill Clinton's administration even though I never voted for him.

Can someone tell me which candidate they think is most likely to balance the budget? Meaning if push came to shove, they would veto something because budget would not balance, or they would change taxes so the budget did balance?

If you can post a link as proof, that would be appreciated.

[kork13]

haha that's a hard line to bite on without some legit research. ^_^ Everyone has theories and opinions, but proof (or incomplete/biased proof, or a lack of proof entirely) is always what will bite back at you... I'd love to contribute, but I'm not savvy on politics enough... So consider me an interested viewer.... I'm interested to see what people (hopefully) bring up.

[sweeps]

Ron Paul? LOL.

[Seeker]

lol -- neither:

The USA has a peculiar budgetary procedure. Its Federal budget is made up of 13 separate bills. They are submitted to Congress for approval by the administration. When the President and Congress disagree, some of the bills are not approved and certain government operations are shut down. This happened in the 1996 fiscal year. In fact, the budget for fiscal year 1996 has been approved only after the 1997 budget was.

In the case of such a deadlock, stop gap budgets are passed by Congress to allow the government to continue to function until a final budget is positively voted on.

Budget are acts of humans. They represent hard data implausibly coupled with aspirations, projections, goals and hopes. They are prone to mistakes, greed, cronyism, ulterior motives. The existence of a mechanism to amend budgets is, therefore, of the essence and to be greeted. A budget amendment is often ceased upon by the opposition as proof of the government's fallibility and failure. But in a changing world - they who do not adapt through change are doomed. Governments that amend their budgets midway merely admit that they are made of humans and are doing their nation a service.

Quoted from the end of the article here: The Delicate Art of Balancing The Budget - Politics

[PrincessPerky]

I would ditto niether of the big two..but I believe other candidates would balance it.

not that I like everything about Bob Barr or the libertarians....

[Caoineag]

I think you are out of luck. Neither one is talking about how to pay for the changes they want. I suspect McCain would be more expensive only because I think he is more likely to get us into wars. They both want tax cuts and both have some very expensive program wants.

[david4353]

Well, I guess we will know soon enough!