Democrats continue to break basic budget laws
January 13, 2013 at 3:48 pm in News by Dustin Siggins 37 Comments
For more than 1,350 days, Senate Democrats have failed to do their lawful duty and pass a budget. This has been widely reported and, among mostly non-Democratic Party-aligned media, rightly decried as irresponsible, illegal, etc.
What is less often reported is President Obama’s failure to submit his budget proposal to Congress on time. Andrew Stiles has the story at The Corner:
By law, the president must submit an annual budget to Congress by the first Monday in February, a deadline Obama only met once during his first term in office. He has already missed that deadline more times than any president dating back to the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, which established it.
Stiles links to Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) letter to the Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is the thesis of Stiles’ post. The letter asks when the President’s budget proposal is expected to actually be submitted, since it is clear it won’t be out by February 4, the legal deadline. Expectations on when the report will actually be out vary from February 11 to sometime in March, according to Roll Call.
It’s malpractice that one of the few legitimate duties of the federal government, passing a budget, hasn’t happened for years. This abandonment has led to budget crisis after budget crisis, though given the mainstream media’s propensity to blame Republicans and the Tea Party for these crises, it’s obvious why the American people haven’t yet put blame where it really belongs. After all, disagreement on spending priorities is why a budget is necessary – it gives both chambers time to figure out what’s important and what is not, what is politically passable and what won’t work, etc. It also gives the American people an objective measuring stick of the spending priorities of both parties, something they didn’t have last November.
To be fair, there are a couple of qualifiers to Chairman Ryan’s letter and Stiles’ criticisms. First, no President’s budget gets approved by Congress. It’s a framework of priorities more than anything else, though President Obama’s last budget was so nonsensical and based upon so many unrealistic assumptions that not a single member of Congress voted for it.
Second, it’s doubtful Chairman Ryan doesn’t already have a plan in mind for a 2013 budget proposal. If it’s anything like his 2011 and 2012 budget proposals, it won’t be nearly adequate for the challenges facing the nation. However, it will at least work towards some necessary budget reforms (though the 2012 House Republican budget failed to implement defense cuts or Social Security reform), whereas Senate Democrats are willing to do nothing in order to garner political advantage, and President Obama is willing to rely on fantastical economic growth estimates to claim his proposal is realistic.
In Washington, budgets are as much about politics as they are about actual governing and prioritization of spending. Clearly, President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) are more focused on the politics side of the equation, to the detriment of the nation.
Sad thing is Obama won re-election with 8% unemployment, trillion dollar deficits and no budget. He even took historical red states like Colorado, Virginia and Iowa. The country’s demographics are changing and we are double down on the same old rhetoric that lost us the election.
Hellfire,
President Obama getting re-elected makes sense if you think about it. People like us tend to believe we can provide for ourselves. People I know that voted for President Obama tend to need providers. We seek freedom to achieve our goals while they believe we are the reason they fail in achieving their goals thereby needing a big brother to help them. I’ll never understand why because those people are no less capable of providing for themselves than are we. Unfortunately, there are more of them than us.
There is not more of them than us! The election was fixed by Obama and the democratic party!!!!
Jackie,
LOL, it is nice to believe that President Obama and the Democratic Party fixed the election. It makes one feel better. However, it makes me remember the unprovable nonsense we heard from our political opponents about President Bush’s victory in 2000. Being like them does not make me feel better.
Will – I agree – there are more of them than us, and it’s non-sense like the birther stuff, rigged elections, FEMA camps, and comparisons to Hitler that lost us the election. As our base is dying off, the democrats liberals are growing in numbers.
Will I was there in Tallahassee to see what happened in 2000. You can see my picture on the cover of the Tallahassee Dem and I sang a butchered song for CNN. I spent my own money to get there from the metro area and returning I was pictured on the front page of the Baltimore sun the day they got the hearing to overturn the 1st Fla. Sup. Ct. decision. There was and is allot of evidence that there was election fraud in 2000 that could be recorded in Al Posners book At any cost. I personally vouch for having been a living part of this history. If the democrats had the same evidence that was evident by the democrats in play they would have cheated Bush out of that election too.They only wanted to recount the state in heavily democratic counties to provide more divination with more support and in friendlier like minded areas. They had complaints ready ahead of time. ect. Its funny how they showed the early voter machines chaging votes to Obummer that never changed them to Romney. Its also funny to have several precints vote 100% for one candidate in battleground states. Its not that there was no trouble in 2000 its just that the Democrats were running that effort too. Al Posner -At any cost- How Al Gore tried to steal an elction. I was in the Capital square two weeks every day from 9 am til 10 pm holding my sign an receiving copies of press briefings and court documents. To give you an accurate picture of how bad the union problem is I took alot of posters given to me from other protesters from boyh sides for historical purposes thinking I could get them to the smithsonian since I was covered and lived near the US capital and got a 3rd party respose that ” We only want the Democrat signs”. I didnt give them either sides sign and they perished in the Isabel huricane when my pickup was flooded over.
With over 100% turnout in given areas, all Obama, there was major fraud, I was in Kennewick Wa. that day, Washington was called an Obama sweep as soon as the polls closed—funny–it took a week to tally the motor-voter ballots on the recreational marijuana law. As to enough fraud to steal it on a national basis, I can’t honestly speak to that, but the election has been called and we have to outlive this bunch.
It is a sad state of affairs, that people who demand more handouts and are only concerned about their own selfish wants are willing to let this country suffer even more and possibly lead to a country most of us will no longer recognize as the United States of America.
I’m afraid (literally) that it’s worse than the democrats rigging the election! I read that the Narcissist In Chief only won in states that did not require a photo ID, that Romney won in all the states requiring a photo ID. If that is true, God help us!!!
not quite, the president did not carry ANY state that required a photo ID. That is not to say that fraud occurred in the states that do not, the reason being is that some of those states have a worldview that a socialist utopia exists, so for a Californian or a New Yorker to think you can rob Peter to pay Paul,( without having to pay the thief, whatever he charges for his service,) is to be expected.
Michigan and New Hampshire require photo id, and Obama won those states. Not sure if the election was rigged because the exit polls matched the outcome.
We need to face the reality that voter suppression laws and redistricting did not win us the election. We gotta try something new and open up our ranks. Maybe welcome the Single woman, Hispanics, Asians into the Tea Party.
He won but not fairly. I just want to make that clear.
Not fairly? Obama won in a landslide. The election wasn’t even close. It was especially embarrassing when all the Republicans proclaimed a huge victory even though the majority of polls stated the opposite.
leah,
I would really love to see the proof that President Obama did not win fairly.
Proof! Just look at Las Vegas (Nevada) where there are pending voter fraud cases waiting to be heard. Also there were numerous reports over the months preceding the election about people having walked into election offices and just by asking were given multiple ballots.
trueamerican,
Let’s hope something comes of the evidence you offer. Otherwise it is just political smoke and mirrors made to distract and assuage us. By the way, I used the key words, voter fraud nevada 2012, in performing a search and came up with some reports of Ron Paul supporters worried that the GOP Caucus was being stolen from their man. I don’t know if I should cry or laugh.
trueamerican,
I posted three replies and got three…
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
oh, you get them too?
loon,
I get them often. Hehehe
SeNAte needs 2 FIRE DirtyHarryReid from his TITLED POSITION-All the BRIBE TAKING,Plastic Faced SOB does is BLOCK EVERY PIECE of GOOD LEGISLATION that ROLLS out from~GOP HOUSE-While Senate ‘leaders’ have FAILED their ONE DUTY 2 us the TAX PAYERS of the USA,Dirty Harry rakes in 600,000$ BRIBES a POP- The career POLITICIANS are the REASON we owe CHINA,Japan&RUSSIA SO MUCH MONEY-When WILL HARRY REID BE FORCED 2 relinquish his POWERFUL CHOKE HOLD on the 113th CONGRESS?
f li dsay,
I don’t know if Dirty Harry rakes in 600,000$ BRIBES a POP [sic], but in my opinion he proved himself an idiot when he said the war in Iraq was lost.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jyDOAmJYFFA
Even more idiotic was his later claim that paying income taxes in America is voluntary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7mRSI8yWwg
It makes me shake my head in disbelief that Reid leads his Party in the Senate.
f Li dsay
Due respect, but you had your chance to get rid of Harry Ried! Instead of selecting a reasonable opponent, the TP pushed the lunitic Sharon Angle.
Please keep in mind that elections DO have consequenses – to complain about those consequenses after the fact is a waste of energy and futile effort!!!!!
Joe,
Hear, hear. Alaskans suceeded in deposing Lisa Murkowski our 2010 GOP primary. In my opinion, she is a big government enabler and establishment Republican. Shamefully, the same Tea Party Express backed both Joe Miller and Sharon Angle. Murkowski eventually deafeated Miller as a write-in candidate in the general election. While I don’t think Miller is a “lunatic”, I do believe he is a liar and hypocrite.
succeeded, not suceeded and defeated, not deafeated. Sorry.
BAD WILL!!
Make me feel old , Will, last time I danced iron in Alaska was winter of 73-74, I seem to remember a Murkowski in politics there, then.
loon,
I moved up to Alaska in 1978, so I’m not sure if a Murkowski was in politics before my arrival to the state. Frank Murkowski, Lisa’s father, first got elected as a US Senator in 1981. He appointed his daughter Lisa to replace himself when he took office as Governor of Alaska in 2002. Haha my friend, we are old.
To label the opposition as a lunatic or unstable is the stock in trade of those who seek power without honor, the practice dates to the Athenian Greeks, was a vicious ploy then and still is.
Beating our breast over spilt milk is ok if you really love the abuse someone will mete you for self-chastisement. The amount of cashola poured into defeating Angle was next to incredible–as was the milk-wagon thrown at Bachmann.
National parties are run by power mongers who are immoral enough to seek power at all costs, and Harry Ried is one of them, he need not creep behind his Mormon roots when he made his money buying and selling cat-houses .
In my daily work, if I don’t do my job, I get fired. It was congress’s job to submit a BALANCED budget, if it isn’t balanced, it is not a budget, it is a LOAN APPLICATION.
When the Senate tables it, as Harry Ried has done now 32 times, they are to REFUSE a continuing resolution. Which is code for “shutting down the government”. It is not a choice among men of honor, the reason we are in this debt spiral is that there is no honor left, somehow ascribing that image to marines with sabers. George Bush had an obligation when Nancy Pelosi did not do her duty. John Boehner has the same duty now. Shame on both parties.
that means that when the GOP controlled the senate they broke the law
Will,
I agree with your conclusion. Also, as if I matter, your comment is succinct and intellectually honest. Well done. Now please explain your point in mentioning it.
i’m saying that every member of the senate except for the ones who only lasted between 1999 and 2001 should be in jail because the only years we had a balanced budget was 1960, 1969, and 1998-2001, balancing a budget isn’t easy
As a matter of logic, to spend what you cannot answer for within your tenure of service is intrinsically immoral, something we have yawned off since FDR. Both parties seem to want us to look away from them by pointing at the” dilemma du jour.”.
Blame is responsibility which the democrats wont take as they are clearly devisive and irresponsible with distraction and smoke and mirrors protected by the lamestreme media. Those Republicans who stand their ground are Hero”s to me and to our posterity (children and future) Not only that but they are doing what is right even though it isnt easy. God will judge them and bless them for that if not here but in Heaven.The rest who worry about they,re own reelection take a wrong stand against what they profess to believe to stay in office. We wont get anywhere as a divided party and we will get blamed regaurdless and voted out anyway even if we capitulate and sell out our values. If we stay together and keep redirecting the focus to the proper problem and proper solution and most important get controll of the language. Blame is responsibility and if you take it you can show the correct solution.If we lose fighting the good fight remember we will be the Josephs and Danials God will use to save his people from evil. Governments change but God never does.Turning to God through Christ will reap the greatest reward and blessings on this country. The old values worked best and speak comparatively for themselves
brotherjoe,
We are brothers in Christ. I endeavor to walk with Him, however clumsy effort is. Peace unto you brother.
republicans who stand their ground are normally back benched by the party elites. People like Allen West , Bachmann, and diverse other “tea party types” I can honestly appreciate.
loon,
I get the feeling that establishment politicians worry more about their jobs than us or our country. If there ever were days of citizen politicians, I sorely wish they would make a comeback.
the establishment republicans do care about their country because they get things done and are willing to concede to the other side occasionally