ABSTRACT
The argument between Boren and Clinton reveals the high political stakes surrounding deficit and entitlement issues. Political problems resulting from deficit spending consume Washington politics. This chapter places deficit and entitlement issues in the context of constitutional power and national politics. The institutional and political environment surrounding our presidents explains why debt and deficit problems remain intractable. Controlling the deficit is a political imperative for the chief executive. The macropolitics of budgeting involves the battle fought annually over our national economic course. The macropolitics of budgeting have reduced the importance of budgeting micropolitics. Cutting a program one believes in also produces conflict between deficit macropolitics and micropolitics. Emergency spending permits Congress to continue its tradition of pork barrel politics. Basically, groups hire political consultants or public relations firms to make a ruckus in the districts of key legislators. They often fly angry constituents to Washington to meet their law-makers.
