ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the major causes of today's budget deficits, the difficult options available to policymakers for controlling them, and the ways lawmakers have improvised new rules to deal with a complex mix of politics and fiscal policy. Because federal trust funds figure so heavily in the situation. The chapter also explains the interaction of trust funds with the budget, and— in an appendix— the makeup of the major trust funds of interest to the current budget debates. Admittedly, the policy choices for balancing the budget are politically difficult, as they involve tax rates and also the benefit levels of popular programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Four major pieces of legislation stand out as having created the legal environment for today's budgetary process. It is instructive to review each one: the Budget Control Act of 2011, the American Taxpayers Relief Act of 2012, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015.
