Presidents dont balance or write budgets. The senate does. Now, which party was responsible for writing the last balanced budget?
Oh brother, you're not *this* bad, usually, blackangst.
First, it's the House, not the Senate, who initiates all budget bills. The Senate votes on the ones the House passes.
Second, welcome to America. To expand on the 1 page summary you got on the trip here, the President has enormous influence on the budget.
In fact, the President writes the draft budget that the House uses as its start - it's his departments who write up recommended budgets that make up the draft, and it's his policies that decide whether the draft has more or less for war, for education, or whatever else his policies are.
It's why the budgets have a high correlation with the President they're under.
For example, under 12 years of Republicans - Reagan and Bush - we had unrelenting high deficits, who allowed for political gain put on the tab of future Americans. This includes under the same Democratic congresses at times that had previously passed far smaller deficits.
Then we had 8 years of Clinton - and while you would expect some variation year to year, you didn't really get is - it's almost a straight line down on the deficit every year, the first two under a Democratic House and the last six a Republican House. And then, when the second Bush took office, the deficits - under about the same Republican congress - consistently shot way back up under his policies, year after year.
If you would get a little bit of a clue, which is too much to ask obviously, you would see the large role the president has in shaping the budget.
And not read us high school books on the system that oversimplify it.
Look at a graph of the deficit over the last 30 years, and the 8 years of decline under Clinton leading to balanced budget before it shot up again *under the Republicans controlling all branches*, and tell me with a straight face it was the House that really balanced the budget and not the President having anything to do with it. And oh by the way, the last time before that, was a Democratic President *and* Democratic majority if not super-majority in the House (and Senate).
Now, some factors were the tech bubble under Clinton versus the recession under Bush - but these were not nearly enough to explain the change in deficit. The 'opposition' theory - that different parties in the House and Presidency cancel out each others' spending desires - is a factor as well but again does not explain it, see the first two years of Clinton with a Democratic congress reducing the deficit both years just as much as the next six.