Talk about the "do nothing congress" . 
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he would not bring a budget to the floor for a vote this year, the Hill reports, which would make this the third straight year without such a resolution.
"We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year — it's done, we don't need to do it," Reid said.
Though Senate Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said he expects his committee to produce a budget document, Reid said he wouldn't bring it to the floor.
His argument is that last summer's debt ceiling deal already set the spending levels for the year, so there's no need to pass a resolution that is non-binding anyway. Money is typically spent during the year through the appropriations process.
The problem with this explanation is that Democrats have spent a year trashing the House-passed budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. as balancing the budget on the backs of the poor, and have called for a more balanced approach. Yet neither President Obama nor the Democratic Senate has put on paper a budget that accomplishes the same ends through different means.
In a document that was scored by the CBO, Ryan showed that lawmakers could balance the budget and put the nation on a sustainable fiscal course without raising taxes. Obama and Democrats have said they supported a "balanced approach" that would include a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts. But beyond speeches, they have not released an actual detailed plan that can be evaluated by the CBO to produce the same budgetary savings as Ryan's plan does.
As I wrote in my column yesterday, when Obama releases his budget a week from Monday, it will be his last chance to live up to his promise of wanting to be the type of leader that made tough choices.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexami...d-says-he-wont-bring-budget-floor-year/358036
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he would not bring a budget to the floor for a vote this year, the Hill reports, which would make this the third straight year without such a resolution.
"We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year — it's done, we don't need to do it," Reid said.
Though Senate Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said he expects his committee to produce a budget document, Reid said he wouldn't bring it to the floor.
His argument is that last summer's debt ceiling deal already set the spending levels for the year, so there's no need to pass a resolution that is non-binding anyway. Money is typically spent during the year through the appropriations process.
The problem with this explanation is that Democrats have spent a year trashing the House-passed budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. as balancing the budget on the backs of the poor, and have called for a more balanced approach. Yet neither President Obama nor the Democratic Senate has put on paper a budget that accomplishes the same ends through different means.
In a document that was scored by the CBO, Ryan showed that lawmakers could balance the budget and put the nation on a sustainable fiscal course without raising taxes. Obama and Democrats have said they supported a "balanced approach" that would include a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts. But beyond speeches, they have not released an actual detailed plan that can be evaluated by the CBO to produce the same budgetary savings as Ryan's plan does.
As I wrote in my column yesterday, when Obama releases his budget a week from Monday, it will be his last chance to live up to his promise of wanting to be the type of leader that made tough choices.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexami...d-says-he-wont-bring-budget-floor-year/358036
