A Thousand Days of Failure
One thousand days is long enough to get a lot done. An elephant needs only about two-thirds of that time for a full-term pregnancy. In the past 1,000 days, the Egyptians figured out how to overthrow their government. The Libyans figured out how to overthrow their dictator. Theoretically, man could travel to Mars and back in that time.
However, the U.S. Senate has failed to figure out how to propose and pass a budget for this country as required by law in that time.
It is only fitting that President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address on January 24, which will mark 1,000 days since the Senate last complied with the budget law.
The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (CBA) is quite clear that passing a budget is not optional. It states, “On or before April 15 of each year, the Congress shall complete action on a concurrent resolution on the budget for the fiscal year beginning on October 1 of such year.”
Additionally, the CBA requires details that go far beyond the many little budget deals that kick the can down the road every few weeks or months. Among the details:
The concurrent [budget] resolution shall set forth appropriate levels for the fiscal year beginning on October 1 of such year and for at least each of the 4 ensuing fiscal years for the following -
(1) totals of new budget authority and outlays;
(2) total Federal revenues and the amount, if any, by which the aggregate level of Federal revenues should be increased or decreased by bills and resolutions to be reported by the appropriate committees;
(3) the surplus or deficit in the budget;
(4) new budget authority and outlays for each major functional category, based on allocations of the total levels set forth pursuant to paragraph (1);
(5) the public debt;
The CBA also requires a report to be filed with the budget resolution.
The report accompanying the [budget] resolution shall include -
(A) a comparison of the levels of total new budget authority, total outlays, total revenues, and the surplus or deficit for each fiscal year set forth in the resolution with those requested in the budget submitted by the President;
(B) with respect to each major functional category, an estimate of total new budget authority and total outlays, with the estimates divided between discretionary and mandatory amounts;
(C) the economic assumptions that underlie each of the matters set forth in the resolution and any alternative economic assumptions and objectives the committee considered;
(D) information, data, and comparisons indicating the manner in which, and the basis on which, the committee determined each of the matters set forth in the resolution;
(E) the estimated levels of tax expenditures (the tax expenditures budget) by major items and functional categories for the President’s budget and in the resolution; and
(F) [committee] allocations described in section 633(a) of this title.
And yet, the Senate has ignored the law for 1,000 days. The problem is that there is no penalty in this law for breaking it.
This is a failure of leadership. Former House Democrat Majority Leader Steny Hoyer stated that enacting a budget is “the most basic responsibility of governing.”
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said recently, “There is no excuse. I would have been impeached as governor.” He went on to ask his Senate colleagues if anyone had a plan. Sadly, he could not find any senator within the Democrat Party willing to put forth a detailed budget.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) gives a standard answer that Republicans have obstructed the ability of the Senate to act. He apparently is hoping that Americans forget the fact that Democrats had a 60-vote majority until 2011 and could have passed anything over the objections of Senate Republicans.
The Senate Democrats voted against the budget resolutions passed by the House. The Senate Democrats voted against President Obama’s budget. What they have refused to do for 1,000 days is propose any budget of their own.
The real reason for not producing a budget is that the Senate Democrats are terrified of letting the public know what they stand for. They want to only agree to a compromise that Republicans agree to also. That way the blame can be shared for the pain that will result from only spending money that we can afford.
Granted, assembling a budget for consideration by the Senate is complex. Senators created a special standing committee to perform the job. The Senate Budget Committee spends about $6 million each year in order to get the job done. The problem is that they have produced no work product in almost 3 years. Does anyone know why we are paying for this committee to do no work?
Sen. Manchin pointed out that the federal government is currently spending more than $1 trillion more than we are collecting this year in revenues. Why not start balancing the budget by eliminating the committee that is not doing the job taxpayers are paying for?
If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) refuse to follow the law and produce a budget this year, the least they could do is eliminate the Senate Budget Committee and stop wasting taxpayer money.
Thank you Mr Morse. I wish the MSM would pay more attention to this issue. There are many factors behind the Senate’s refusal to pass a budget, but one is that in the eyes of many Democrats, budgets are simply unnecessary. What is important is the establishment of programs. After that, the program is expected to be funded at whatever level is required to keep it going and growing. No budget is required; just ever increasing levels of spending authorization.
both teh MSM and conservative media are more interested in non-stories like Romney’s tax returns. Today, confirmation came that he is rich. In other news, the sun will set in the west. Meanwhile, primaries turn on who delivers the most self-satisfying punch to the MSM.
Never underestimate the ability of the Repubs to manufacture defeat from certain victory. And never underestimate the ability of conservatives to mask their religious bigotry behind claims of a candidate not being conservative enough. By that standard, the cons should support Paul and Paul only. Newt has had overlapping marriages not once, but twice; Santorum actually thinks states should have some ability to control, if not ban, contraceptives; and, Romney is Mormon, which teh Catholic Channel – Fox – cannot abide. That leaves a TX Baptist.
Time to lock them all up. Every last one of them. End of subject.
The obvious reason they haven’t – the stimulus is now the baseline and they have accomplished it through continuing resolutions.
They won’t pass a budget because they don’t have to. The Republicans in the House have played along instead of insisting on a budget.
Somebody should look at the facts. The Democrats have been in control for 4 plus years and in spite of many—I repeat many proposals by the Republicans to pass one their requests have been denied. So point youe finger and your accusations at the real culcrit the Democrats.
The Republicans have controlled the House for a year and a half now. They have played along real nice with the spending, borrowing, and continuing resolutions. If they had the backbone, they could have refused and insisted on a budget.
In the Senate the GOP has used the filibuster to prevent any budget and they will continue to do so. To them compromise is a dirty, four-letter word. They do not want a budget only a return to power. Shame on them.
The elimination of a single Senate committee will solve the problem? Doesn’t sound very credible. Perhaps, you could explain that further.
No, eliminating a single small senate committee will do little. But it’s a start, and a good one in that it would show congress that if they don’t do their job they’re not immune from being fired just as any other worker.
And yet, do you hear the mainstream media saying anything about this? Could you imagine if Bush was president and he didn’t come up with a budget for 1,000 days? The world would have ended in the mainstream media and people like Obama and Clinton would have been screaming about it for months. Yet what do you hear now? Nothing. Hypocritical rats.
If that were true (it isn’t) why didn’t the MSM yell and scream about the nonsense of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The lack of a budget should been properly seen as less than ideal book-keeping. Iraq has cost America 4,500 soldiers, 35,000 seroiusly wounded and over a trillion dollars while changing nothing accept damaging to our reputation.
This is Ron Paul’s famous Predictions speech from April 24, 2002. This is the original video compiling recent images and video to give his speech a chilling effect.
“I have no timetable for these predictions, but just in case, keep them around and look at them in 5-10 years. Let’s hope and pray that I’m wrong on all accounts. If so, I will be very pleased. ” Ron Paul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGDisyWkIBM&feature=player_embedded
He’s about 50% and some of these like Afghanistan were easy calls in 2002.
If only he had a more reasonable foreign policy answer than just pulling back to our own shores and whacking the Defense budget. The world for good or bad is what it is – a dangerous place for the unwary – and I classify Paul as unwary. An unfettered China Iran or Russia in places like the Middle East, the Western Pacific and in Eurasia would be like putting a shark in your home aquarium – don’t expect longevity for the little fishes. Much of South America would be on their short list of places to play next.
His understanding of the financial mess here and abroad is uncanny – most of our congress-critters understand at some level what is going on but are busy just trying to line their own nests before the financial sky collapses. They sense or know what is coming as many of us do too. The only question at this point is how bad will it be?
All this, an eminently defeatable incumbent and the best the Republicans can do is Romney and Gingrich? I don’t get it. What about this Boston goalie? He sounds pretty good.
Who controls the U.S. Senate? The Democrats. Throw the bums out.
Far from reality sir. The filibuster means we must toss out at least a dozen Republicans to make the Senate workable again.
The media will never stop running cover for the government not doing its job, unless it’s republicans. They support the destruction of the Constitution and therefore, ignore same. If they were referees in a critical playoff game, their obvious bias would be identified with every flag thrown and every rules violation by the favored team ignored. Such is the way of Rome, revisited.
Harry Reid has presided over a Senate that is literally dysfunctional. Congress has been co-opted to take it while being bent over a pole.
American citizens who understand how our government is supposed to work are furious. Citizens who believe that how our government currently operates is how it’s SUPPOSED to work are feeling equally helpless.
The poor, used by the left as a bargaining chip are not doing any better and haven’t done any better in decades. Johnson, Carter, and to a lesser extent, Clinton but only because he was forced into some slight reforms.
We, as a nation, are failing. And it started in the classroom the day Johnny was told to not be so aggressive. When Anne was told to “answer more politely” and when Harry was sent to the principal’s office for telling the teacher she was flat out wrong.
The socialists are winning the war on human behavior and pigeon-holing society. Political correctness has done far more damage to our society and given rise to a constant undercurrent of fear that destroys everything.
…for he sees his job only as one to oppose and dispose of everything filed by the other party.
Behold the mascot of the Democratic party leadership – the Weasel… They are small, active predators…feed on small mammals, and have from time to time been considered vermin.
I also wanted to take this moment, and shine some light on the lie government has been spreading about a default by the U.S. has never happened before. Since the day of Alexander Hamilton, the United States has never defaulted on the federal debt.
That’s what we budget-watchers always say. It’s a great talking point. One that helps bolster the argument that default should not be an option in Washington’s ongoing debt limit slowdown. There’s just one teensy problem: it isn’t true. As Jason Zweig of the Wall Street Journal recently noted, the United States defaulted on some Treasury bills in 1979. And it paid a steep price for stiffing bondholders.
Terry Zivney and Richard Marcus describe the default in The Financial Review (sorry, I can’t find an ungated version): Investors in T-bills maturing April 26, 1979 were told that the U.S. Treasury could not make its payments on maturing securities to individual investors. The Treasury was also late in redeeming T-bills which become due on May 3 and May 10, 1979. The Treasury blamed this delay on an unprecedented volume of participation by small investors, on failure of Congress to act in a timely fashion on the debt ceiling legislation in April, and on an unanticipated failure of word processing equipment used to prepare check schedules.
The United States thus defaulted because Treasury’s back office was on the fritz. This default was, of course, temporary. Treasury did pay these T-bills after a short delay. But it balked at paying additional interest to cover the period of delay. According to Zivney and Marcus, it required both legal arm twisting and new legislation before Treasury made all investors whole for that additional interest.
Some may quibble about whether this constitutes default. After all, the United States did eventually make its payments. And the disruption applied to only a sliver of its debt – certain T-bills owned by individual investors. But I think it’s unambiguous. A debt default occurs anytime a creditor fails to make a timely interest or principal payment. By that standard, the United States did default. It was small. It was unintentional. But it was indeed a default.
It may have been small in comparison to the over all debt, but if Congress failed to address the issue, it was not unintentional.
You can’t score a small c communist takeover, if you don’t ever put something to score on the table.
Not only is it a dereliction of duty, it is the high beam signal that the “fundamental transformation” is being done TO us, and the propaganda machine is covering for the treason.
When the NLRB is sent out like Orwell’s dogs to attack a private company, when the DOJ runs guns to drug cartels, hires anti-American radicals and enforces laws in a race non-neutral manner…
When massive legislation is passed without witness, open debate and in reconciliation, when NO budget is allowed to be scored for THREE STRAIGHT YEARS, and when the co-conspiratorial media hides this from the low information public…small c communism is well under way.
The overthrow is in full gear. And the Stupid Party is still in the locker room trying on different color wrist bands…and thinking up cute slogans.
It’s not incompetence. It’s treason.
I wonder if this has anything to do with current Congressional approval ratings of between 11 and 13%. The American public sees what is going on and profoundly disapprove, hence the rise of the Tea Party.
It will only get worse if we don’t take charge in November.
Congesses low approval rating (11-13%) is mostly (at least 85%) the fault of the liberal Democrats in D.C. I just hope that The American people will see & consider that when we/they make our decision on who to vote for in November.
Further; I really expected to see Obama’s approval ratings take a hit when he killed the Keystone XL pipeline and all those jobs it would have generated, but he seems to be coated with the same Teflon Bill Clinton used. He’s still rocking along with about 47% who think he’s doing a good job while playing golf.
Go figure.
The approval numbers are manufactured by the left, for the left. IOW they are a lie. He has tanked and I can’t find anyone who has anything good to say about the lightworker.
What are you guys smoking!
The formative experience for most of the Republican leadership is the asswhipping Bill Clinton and the media put on them over the “government shutdown.” That is a lot of the reasoning behind their recoiling from Newt Gingrich, who they hold responsible. It is union playbook stuff that WJC to to the National stage. Those of us who’ve actually dealt with unions in adversarial situation know that big white/gray collar unions cannot sustain a strike, probably can’t even mount a complete strike for more than a few days. The unions know we know, so they plan for virtual strikes with the complicity and often active assistance of their fellow travellers in the media. If they “strike,” it will be selective so it doesn’t show how little support they have and if they call the strike at 8 AM, there’ll be mommies dying of cancer because they lost their health insurance and babies starving because the welfare office is shutdown on the 6PM news that very day. It’s all a lie, but lies are better than the truth in politics if you can get people to believe them. That’s what Clinton did to the Republicans, a skillfully orchestrated virtual shutdown that had the people believing something had actually happened and the Republicans folded like a cheap chair. They’ve been terrified by it ever since, so the only thing the Democrats have to do is start howling about default or shutdown, and the Rs just roll over and play tricks for them. I don’t know how you get a pair for them, but it has to be done.
So, it’s now been a thousand days since the Dem Senate has passed a budget, and the Dem President has spent almost 10% of those days golfing?
passing a budget is not optional.
Okay, got it. Now what exactly are you going to do about it? What has the POOP (Pernicious Obsolete Old Party) done about it?
passing a budget is not optional.
Okay, got it. Now what exactly are you going to do about it? What has the POOP (Pernicious Obsolete Old Party) done about it? Member of the GOP until G.H.W. Bush and a member of POOP since.
I believe the Seante is in violation of US law. I believe the US law states that a budget must be passed by Sept 30 each year. The reason for Sept 30 is bea=cause Congress moved the end of the fiscal year fron June 30 to Sept 30 to give them more time to pass a budget. Since the Senate hasn’t passed a budget the government should be shut down aqs it was in 1979 and 1980 when Preasident Carter and the DEmocratic Congress had a disagreement over the fact that the Congress included the fundinf for new aircraft carriers that President Peanut Brain did want. Senator Reid should be impeached for no passing a budget. But then again the Commie Union SEIU helped get Reid re-eledcted in 2010.
You are partially correct. The Senate is in violation of the law. The Congressional Budget Act states that “On or before April 15 of each year, the Congress shall complete action on a concurrent resolution on the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1 of such year.” Unfortunately, there is no enforcement mechanism or penalty for the violation.
What needs to be passed by September 30 of each year is the legislation that actually appropriates money for all the federal programs. These appropriations bills are separate from the Budget Resolution. Congress continues to pass appropriations bills to keep the government open. However, without an actual budget, there is no coherent plan that lets citizens know that our path is unsustainable.
It is similar to continually writing checks on your bank account with no plans to make sure that you haven’t written more checks than you have deposited in the bank. If you have no plan, it is easy to overdraw your account. If you don’t have enough money in your account to pay for the rent or mortgage, you can be thrown out on the street. The government simply prints more money and will hand the bill to your children.
“Unfortunately, there is no enforcement mechanism or penalty for the violation.”
They knew that and it’s a test of the moral will of the nation. They are going for broke… as they make us all broke. We need a revolution that is not expected by the politcal masters.
“However, without an actual budget, there is no coherent plan that lets citizens know that our path is unsustainable.”
which is the very reason they don’t want a budget. They WANT their subjects to be blind to the state of the Union, the route to serfdom and national insolvency they’ve deliberately steered the country towards.
They fully intend to continue on that course until they’ve leeched every single ounce of gold they can to their foreign bank vaults, just like the African dictators who are their great examples.
1000 days. Another example of how the liberals in D.C. dont care for the American people.