Budget Buffoonery
For anyone counting along at home, Sunday marked a grim milestone when the Democrat-controlled Senate zipped past the three-year mark without passing a budget. At which point it would be appropriate to note that the Senate is legally required to adopt a budget … every year.
No matter, though, because Democrats have about 15 trillion reasons why they’ve seen fit to defy federal law and avoid any semblance of basic fiscal responsibility for nearly 2,000 days. Specifically, the federal government has spent about $10.5 trillion and the national debt has increased about $4.5 trillion over the last three years. Budget? Ha, we don’t need no stinking budget.
During the same timeframe even President Obama has managed to craft consecutive budgets, although on two tries they were so egregiously extreme and unrealistic that neither could snag even an inkling of Congressional support and were summarily shot down by a combined 511-0 vote.
There’s no excuse for the Democrats’ budgetary stonewalling and for proof just look across the aisle, where the Republican House passed a budget plan crafted by Paul Ryan that included proposed reforms to Medicare and Medicaid designed to help government return to some form of fiscal sustainability.
For their efforts, Ryan and company were ravaged politically by the mainstream media, progressives and Democrats. But I repeat myself.
To put the Democrat budget dry spell in perspective, the Republican Senate Budget Committee laid it out in stark numbers:
1096 …… Days since the Senate majority last passed a budget
$10.4 trillion ……Total federal spending since a budget was last adopted
$4.5 trillion ………… New gross debt accumulated over that time
$15,000 ……………. Additional debt per person over that time
$39,000 ……………. Additional debt per family over that time
$626 billion ……….. Net interest payments on the debt since a budget was last adopted
1 …………………….. Budget mark-ups scheduled and then suddenly cancelled at the last minute by the Senate majority this year
0 …………………….. Number of Democrat Senators who voted for any budget in the last two years
0 …………………….. Number of votes in the House and Senate in support of President Obama’s budgets this year and last
511 …………………. Number of combined votes against
51 …………………… Number of votes needed to pass a budget in the Senate
0 …………………….. Number of Democrat budget plans brought to the Senate floor in 2010
0 …………………….. Number brought to the floor in 2011
0 …………………….. Number brought to the floor in 2012
2 U.S.C. 631 ………. Title and Section of the U.S. Code that requires a budget be passed
The truth of the matter is, it’s politically inconvenient for Democrats to offer specifics on spending priorities, entitlement reform, debt or tax policy, and they’re not about to let anything as meddling as following their legally mandated responsibility force a play.
Not with an election on the horizon, when they think there are still voters gullible enough to allow them to keep getting away with it.
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