Why a Potential Failure to Pass Budget by the Democrats is Illegal

Islam Times: House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer is tired of passing budgets as the law demands. He thinks Congress can just keep spending money without any sort of budget. "The fact is, you don't need a budget," he said last Tuesday. "We can adopt appropriations bills. We can adopt authorization policies without a budget. We already have an agreed-upon cap on spending." Actually, "the fact is," Congress is required under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to pass a spending plan and then have it scored by the Congressional Budget Office and signed by the president. That none of this happens suggests a level of disrespect for the law and the people found only among criminals. As for the "agreed-upon cap on spending" mentioned by Hoyer: How's that model of fiscal restraint working out? Well, a new report out Thursday notes that Congress has already blown right through the spending "cap" put in place just last summer. According to the Heritage Foundation, "last week's Congressional Budget Office report shows they (Congress) have exceeded their official Budget Control Act limits for the current year by a stunning $156 billion." Stunning indeed. It's now been 1,020 days, or 2.8 years, since Congress last passed a budget.

Rather than an official document, Congress has passed a series of continuing resolutions and spending bills, periodically raising the debt ceiling so it can spend even more. Hoyer is not only in his dereliction. On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said: "We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year. It's done, we don't need to do it." In short, laws are for the little people.

As for President Obama, he's set to release his own budget proposal Monday. Is he annoyed that Congress has made his budget a dead-letter before it's even released? After four consecutive years of trillion dollar-plus deficits, next year's budget shortfall would drop to $901 billion under the administration's tax and spending policies. "Well," said Jay Carney, the president's spokesman, "I don't have an opinion to express on how the Senate does its business with regards to this issue." This is fiscal gangsterism, nothing else. It has nothing to do with the current fiscal crisis, or the slow economy. It has everything to do with Democrats' refusal to admit that their unparalleled spending binge and exploding debt will soon lead to a tidal wave of tax hikes on average Americans.

The election-year document is sure to get a brushoff from Republicans controlling the House. The White House says that Monday's budget will contain many items from a September submission to a failed congressional deficit "supercommittee," which deadlocked over tax increases and how much to cut popular benefit programs like Medicare.

The president will give his budget speech Monday morning at 11:00 A.M. Eastern Time at Northern Virginia Community College.

The Obama budget will also reflect tight "caps" on agency operating budgets forged in last summer's budget and debt limit pact between Obama and House Speaker John Boehner. Those include a $6 billion cut in the budget for core Pentagon operations and cuts to many domestic agencies as well.
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