We need a new Senate, and majority leader:
Whatever else you can say about the House of Representatives and President Obama, at least these folks have consistently produced spending documents in rough approximation to legal requirements (to be sure, Obama’s latest offering, showed up two months late and $5.2 trillion long when it came to increasing deficits over the next decade).
In contrast and despite a solid one-party majority, the Senate has passed exactly one budget in the past four years and in most of those years, they didn’t even produce the necessary document as mandated by law. Instead, we were treated to journalistic valentines to former Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), the guy in charge of the Senate budget wonkery, by a pliant press.
As my colleague Ed Krayewski reminds us in his essential survey of “4 Washington Scandals That Still Matter,” the Democrats couldn’t pass a budget even when they controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House. It’s been the Senate all along that’s been the problem, at least since Sen. Harry “We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year,” Reid (D-Nev.) has been running that godawful show.
And will for at least another year and a half, until we can fix the problem.
Speaking of Valentines, the CR under consideration includes a 6-figure valentine to late-Senator Lautenberg’s widow.
What is this fascination with the Senate producing a budget? For years the GOP complained about it, and even made it one of their debt ceiling demands. So Reid complied — did that make anything better?
The reason we have “budget theatrics” is that the set of budgets that the Senate and White House find acceptable, and the set of budgets that the House finds acceptable, have no intersection. As we just learned, it has nothing to do with whether the Senate does or doesn’t go through the process of passing a budget.
I know that this is a quaint notion to you, but the Senate should pass a budget because, you know, it’s the law? You can’t start to reconcile differences in a budget proposal when only one side even has one.
You can’t start to reconcile differences in a budget proposal when only one side even has one
So you think the budget process is much better today than it was before the Senate passed a budget? As soon as the Senate did pass a budget the House announced that they wouldn’t go to conference committee to reconcile differences, so we’re using the same process now as we were in the bad old days before the Senate passed their budget. The whole thing was a pointless exercise.
Reid and his team have demonstrated so much bad faith since they took over that sitting down to negotiate with them would have been even more pointless.
“As soon as the Senate did pass a budget the House announced that they wouldn’t go to conference committee to reconcile differences…”
I know you get your talking points from ThinkProgress:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/23/1909271/gop-refuses-budget-conference/
But if you took yoru head out of the Liberal white lighting mason jar and read aroudn you’d see it’s not as TP describes it:
“It is ‘regular order’ for the budget chairs to agree to a framework before conferees are named, and Chairman Ryan and Sen. Murray are having those conversations. It is difficult to see what Sen. Reid’s stunt today will do to help if Senate Democrats don’t even agree we need to balance the budget in the first place,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said Tuesday.
All depends upon how much information you actually ingest.
A law unenforceable on your rulers.
“The reason we have “budget theatrics” is that the set of budgets that the Senate and White House find acceptable, and the set of budgets that the House finds acceptable, have no intersection. ”
Nonsense.
Unfortunately for the Republic, the House and Senate agree on ~95% of the expenditures.
“What is this fascination with the Senate producing a budget?”
It is enshrined as a simple and explicit law in the Ultimate document that specifies the operation of the US. The document every single politician swore to uphold.
How you can just toss away a Constitutional law with such ease is beyond belief. Dems twaddle on about Obamacare being the law of the land so Lib ethics are clearly situational.
That law is there for many reasons. UNLESS AND UNTIL you can enumerate all the reasons that law is there, your suggestion regarding ignoring that law is not worth the merest consideration.
You think laws are followed only by whim? Stop paying your taxes. Or do you think governments are not bound by the law?
Check with some Old Kings of England to see how that works out.
This has the be THE most ludicrous thing you’ve ever said here.
To even contemplate not adhering to law demonstrates and utter lack of historical knowledge regarding what can happen if we become a nation of men and not laws.
It is enshrined as a simple and explicit law in the Ultimate document that specifies the operation of the US.
Where in the Constitution does it say that the Senate has to produce a budget every year?
“Where in the Constitution does it say that the Senate has to produce a budget every year?”
I bet you never read the Constitution. Here are relevant clauses, see if you can put them all together:
“The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.”
Once a year….
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;”
To pay debts…..
“To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;”
No more than two years. Means budgeting. Think you can run a multi-year war on biennial budgeting?
“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”
We spend money every year. If there were no budget – i.e. spending plan – you cannot spend. A law must be passed for each expenditure. Why do you think they pass that silly continuing resolution every year?
Why do you think the Fed would shut down on October 1?
They have to pass a budget.
“Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States: If he approve he shall sign it,……”
Which leads is to:
Passing a budget is required of the Senate by the 1974 Congressional Budget Act
Therefore it’s a law……….every bit as meaningful and holding just as much power, as the Constitution itself.
The law says the Senate shall pass a budget which, like all other laws, shall be worked out on conference with the House, as per the constitution. Why do you suppose they pass the continuations? For what reason if it’s not necessary?
Basic logic Jim.
Yet another nice straw man of yours burned to ashes.
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year
Obviously they can assemble without passing a budget.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes
Nothing about having to pass a law to do so every year.
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years
So defense appropriations can’t go more than two years out, but that doesn’t mean the Senate has to pass a comprehensive annual budget, they can just pass a biennial defense appropriation.
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law
Sure, but the appropriations don’t have to be made that year, and don’t have to be part of a complete budget.
Why do you think they pass that silly continuing resolution every year?
The Constitution doesn’t say that the Senate has to pass a budget — obviously a continuing resolution will do the job.
Why do you think the Fed would shut down on October 1?
They have to pass a budget.
I assume you mean the federal government, and not the Fed (Federal Reserve). Obviously they don’t have to pass to budget, otherwise we’d have had a shutdown last year (when the Senate didn’t pass a budget). A continuing resolution is enough to do the job.
Passing a budget is required of the Senate by the 1974 Congressional Budget Act
You said it was in the Constitution. The Congressional Budget Act is not the Constitution.
Yet another nice straw man of yours burned to ashes.
You seem to be unclear on the concept of a straw man. “Where in the Constitution does it say that the Senate has to produce a budget every year?” is not a straw man, it’s a simple question. The answer appears to be: nowhere.
Oh and I forgot:
Art. 1 section 8:
“To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;”
Government rules being the relevant part.
And then there’s:
“To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”
As for your straw man (and yes it’s a straw man), it’s pretty clear you can’t put it together.
So as a public service to you, I’ll do your thinking for you and boil it down to make it easy to digest:
The Constitution (see all above quotes) gives the Congress lawmaking power.
The Congress made a law to govern themselves.
The Dem congress is ignoring the law.
Ignoring the law is a very bad idea. And I’m going to leave it as an exercise for you to figure out what lawlessness does to a nation….why ignoring the law in wholesale ways (I’m not talking about speeding) is very bad for the nation and why a government ignoring it’s own laws is terribly bad for a nation.
“Obviously they can assemble without passing a budget.”
Obviously you are clueless when it comes to constructing an argument:
For Congress to create a budget every year, it’s first required that they meet every year. If the Constitution said they shall meet every 5 years then there could not be a budget every year.
Therefore, that clause was a necessary condition for yearly budget making.
The rest of your reply contains similar clueless-ness and is not worth the time to point it all out in detail.
The Congress made a law to govern themselves.
The Dem congress is ignoring the law.
I agree with that. But it’s very different from what you wrote originally:
It [the Senate passing an annual budget] is enshrined as a simple and explicit law in the Ultimate document that specifies the operation of the US. The document every single politician swore to uphold.
There is no “simple and explicit” requirement in the “Ultimate document” that the Senate pass an annual budget. Your statement was incorrect.
The closest thing in the Constitution is probably in Article 1, Section 9:
“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”
Creating and passing a budget has been the standard practice of Congress for almost all of the nation’s history. Failure to do so is not only against the law (pity there’s no criminal penalty for that), it’s a failure to do one of the most basic and important parts of their job. It is a delelection of duty.
it’s a failure to do one of the most basic and important parts of their job
What, exactly, makes it so important? The Senate just passed a budget and it went nowhere — what was the point?
When the federal government is spending several trillion dollars every year, failure to create and abide by a budget is tantamount to fiscal suicide. It is the law, it is one of their basic responsibilities and it is their duty. Before Harry Reid took over leadership of the Senate, they passed budgets. Sometimes they were late but they passed them. So, the Senate passed one budget in the past four years and it didn’t pass the House. Guess what, that’s why they have to negotiate and compromise. The Senate doesn’t get to dictate to the House and vice versa. Reid is taking a “my way or the highway” approach and then complaining that the Republicans are being mean for not caving in to him. He’s an asshole.
“What, exactly, makes it so important? The Senate just passed a budget and it went nowhere — what was the point?”
That you cannot see the point explains why you have such a cavalier attitude towards the law.
I hope your alleged business has someone else for a financial officer, because not knowing the point also suggests an appalling lack if basic financial understanding.
I hope that you are NOT, someday, made to suffer horribly because someone decides to ignore the law. Too late, that’s already begun (Obamacare)!
When the federal government is spending several trillion dollars every year, failure to create and abide by a budget is tantamount to fiscal suicide.
The government still abides by a budget, it just isn’t a single, comprehensive document that’s been passed by the Senate.
I get the point that the Senate should either abide by or change the laws it has passed to govern its budgeting procedures. But that’s a very different matter than violating the Constitution, or breaking a law that’s been imposed from without. It’s like the difference between breaking a rule you’ve made for yourself (e.g. a New Year’s resolution to stop drinking) and one imposed by an external authority (e.g. a parole condition that you stop drinking).
The important question is: what serves the well-being of the country? Over the last five years we’ve had years without a Senate budget, and a year (or was it two?) with a Senate budget, and I think it’s hard to argue that the Senate budget made anything better in a substantive way.
I hope that you are NOT, someday, made to suffer horribly because someone decides to ignore the law.
That’s the real question — who suffered horribly in the years when the Senate didn’t produce a budget? Are they all doing much better this year, now that the Senate did produce a budget?
Rand, watch what you ask for. Per-capita, constant-dollar Federal spending is down 9% in the past three years. I have seen one projection that the budget will balance in another 3 years — but only if nothing is done.
Going by the White House’s own numbers, the budget deficit should shrink from $1 trillion a year in 2012 to less than $500 billion a year by 2018 (a deficit level not seen since 2008). To get there from here, the expection is that receipts (revenue) will increase by $1.4 trillion dollars in that time (a 60% increase), while spending only increases just below $1 trillion dollars in that time (a 25% increase). The last time we had growth in revenue of that magnitude was 94-2000. Do you think we are building to a dot.com level growth? Further, if you look at just the expected growth rate, much of it is expected to occur by 2015 with > 10% increases in 2013 and 2014 and just 6% in 2017 and 2018.
YMMV, but I’m thinking the White House is being optimistic in its projections.
I might be missing something here (I haven’t been following the US budget-producing problems all that closely, because I don’t live there) but it would seem to me that the very worst possible situation is for the politicos (who act like kindergarteners having a tantrum much of the time) to do nothing about the rate of spending, not produce a budget – and then all of a sudden, well before the beginning of the next tax year, the money just runs out.
If that really does happen, the potential for such unpleasantness as armed insurrection or a general strike, or both, would be enormous.
What needs to happen is for someone to bang heads together. Who is that going to be?
If that really does happen, the potential for such unpleasantness as armed insurrection or a general strike, or both, would be enormous.
We should only be so fortunate…