Years ago, the president's budget was not considered to be worth the paper it was printed on.

It's not widely published on paper anymore, but its value has not increased.

Under federal law, the president is required to send a budget to Capitol Hill. It's supposed to outline his priorities for the year.

President Trump mercifully sent an abridged version this year, as presidents normally do in the first year of their presidency.

The Trump budget has a lot of cuts very popular programs: Community Development Financial Institutions, The National Endowment for the Arts, The National Institutes of Health.

And one big increase: Defense.

As usual, the folks on Capitol Hill will hold hearings on the Trump budget. And then, they will ignore most of it.

Some of Congress's most beloved programs are cut or eliminated. And even some that members of Congress don't like (EPA programs), they'll be scared to cut — afraid of angering constituents back home.

Members of Congress love reminding everyone that they, not the president, hold the power of the purse.

Decisions on funding programs are made by the Appropriations Committees in each House.

The late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.), the longtime chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, carried a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his jacket pocket just so he could wave it around and remind everyone who controlled the checkbook.

Members of Congress don't like the Office of Management and Budget and other cabinet officials messing with their powers.

During the early years of the George W. Bush administration, Mitch Daniels of Indiana served as OMB Director. Appropriators believed that Daniels was messing too much in the appropriations process and the two sides were constantly shooting at each other.

At one point, I asked Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) how Daniels could improve relations with appropriators.

“Go back to Indiana,” the usually grumpy chairman snapped.

For years, presidents sought cuts in an education program called Impact Aid, which compensates localities for property taxes they lose as a result of federal lands. Public education is largely funded through property taxes.

The presidents then proposed using the savings on other priorities or on reducing the federal deficit.

But all the while, the chief executives knew that the Impact Aid program was not going to be cut because the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that wrote the House version of the education funding measure was Rep. William Natcher, a Kentucky Democrat.

Natcher's district included Fort Knox, which had a lot of gold, but did not pay property taxes.

And so, Impact Aid was not going to be cut.

Republican presidents generally don't like the Community Development Block Grant program, which provides funds to local governments for projects such as community and economic development projects.

But the programs live on, in part, no doubt because members of Congress do enjoy groundbreaking and ribbon-cutting ceremonies for projects funded through the CDBG program.

So, when Congress gets around to deciding how to fund federal programs for Fiscal 2018, the funding levels aren't going to look anything like what Trump has proposed.

Because while most presidential budgets are DOA, this one's deader than most.

While we're on the subject of Washington's silly ways, there's also the subject of bill naming.

That somewhat bizarre tradition gained the spotlight again recently, as Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) recently introduced H.R. 1275, entitled the “World's Greatest Healthcare Bill of 2017.”

Naming bills is an art in Washington.

Transportation legislation has been notorious for having ridiculous and convoluted names.

In the 1990s, Congress enacted the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 or ISTEA. Of course, when you pronounce that acronym, it becomes ICTEA.

Several years later, Congress enacted the “Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users.”

That certainly is a mouthful and is convoluted. But the legislation became known as SAFETEA-LU.

Why was the LU added at the end? The chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) was paying tribute to his late wife, whose name was “Lu.”

And of course, there's the Financial CHOICE Act — the Dodd-Frank overhaul bill that's again expected to be introduced by House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas).

What does the CHOICE stand for? It means “Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs.”

The name appears to be an acronym in search of words, doesn't it?

Sometimes, legislation just takes on the name of the bill's primary co-sponsors.

And so, the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” became Dodd-Frank.

Why was the long-ago enacted banking law known as Glass-Steagall? It was named after its primary congressional co-sponsors, Senator Carter Glass and Rep. Henry Steagall.

Even naming legislation after sponsors can get silly.

In 1994, Reps. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.) and Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.) pushed a plan to require community notification of sexual predators added to a comprehensive crime bill.

The proposal became known as “Dunn-Deal.”

The ultimate legislation did not go as far as the legislators wanted, so the Dunn-Deal wasn't done.

David Baumann is a Correspondent-at-Large for CU Times. He can be reached at dbaumann@cutimes.com.

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Trump's Budget and the Art of Naming Bills

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