But it won't work. The administration won't trade spending cuts for a clean hike. It's like a hostage taker whose demands aren't met. You're left with two options: surrender, or shoot the hostage. Neither gets you what you want, but one is more reasonable than the other.

The adminstration doesn't write budgets, Congress does, even if the president hosts the meetings where they talk about it.

(Although presidents do run on doing a lot of things they don't have the power to do.)

The President writes the budget. You can find the budgets here: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/budget/2023

Congress passes nonbinding budget resolutions on themselves and binding appropriations bills on the Treasury.

No, the executive writes and releases a budget for PR reasons which Congress then receives, tears up into little pieces, and writes their own.

If the presidency and Senate are controlled by opposing parties the Senate wins.

Remember when Trump's proposed budget just defunded Meals on Wheels? That didn't actually happen because it's not real.

> President writes the budget

The President proposed budgets. The House and the Congress have the power of the purse.

The president is part of the legislative branch because they have veto power. It's really not as simple as "the president writes the budget" or "congress writes the budget". The entire legislative branch writes it together.

> president is part of the legislative branch because they have veto power

Veto is a check on the legislature by the President. It does not make the President part of the legislature anymore than it makes every district court judge. (The Vice President has a hybrid role.)

Congress can pass a budget with zero executive input by overriding the veto. One can correctly say the President is part of the legislative process. But not the branch.

You're getting into semantics and I disagree with your definition of legislative branch. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. If you are a part of the lawmaking process you're in the legislative branch as far as I'm concerned.

Well, you know, your definition of the legislative branch is the non-standard one. It's like you looked at rain, and said "that's mud", and someone said, "that's not mud, it's rain, because mud has dirt in it", and you said, "there's some dirt in rain, too; I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree". No, it's not "agree to disagree"; they're right in their definition, and you're wrong.

Tanks for the laugh, but the accepted definition of legislative branch is "branch of government that makes laws" and the president is very much in the part of the government that makes laws, considering the difficulty in passing them without their approval.

No, as others have already explained to you, the president is not part of the branch of government that makes laws. He is (often) part of the process, but he's not part of the branch - not as those words are normally used.

You can go with your own personal interpretation of the definition, or you can talk with the rest of the planet. Your choice.

You basically can’t make a law without the president. I can’t see how you can claim they’re not part of the law making process. Two thirds of both houses means the president absolutely is a a part of the branch of government that makes laws.

That's because he's a "check and balance" on the legislative branch, not part of it. Congress "checks" the other branches by approving nominees and controlling their budgets.

And then effectively nobody checks SCOTUS, which is kind of a problem.