The U.S. budget process has become a pariah 50 years after Nixon signed it into law

The White House announced Friday that it would run up an additional $1.1 trillion in new debt if all its plans were carried out over the next 10 years .

That would be on top of the $16.3 trillion in debt it had already planned to incur and would bring government debt to $54.5 trillion .

In 1974 , the government’s debt totaled the then-mammoth sum of about $475 billion .

Budget resolutions used to be the big thing that Budget Committees, also created under the 1974 law, did each year .

Without them, the panels have become less relevant almost to the point of being seen as vestigial afterthoughts.

Budget resolutions have little inherent power themselves, but their political value had resided in forcing lawmakers to put on record how much in taxes, spending and deficits they wanted.

A Trump win could revive the issue of presidential impoundment, which happens when the president basically refuses to spend money Congress approved for specific uses.

The fight could end up in the federal courts, which may be Trump -friendly at the level of the U.S. Supreme Court .

2025 will see the budget be a major focus of Washington , even if large portions of the Budget Act are seemingly on their last legs.