Maggie's Farm

Well, budget bills originate in the House of Representatives & then go to the Senate, which either approves it or passes its own version, which then gets sent back to the House for reconciliation.

After the Republicans took over the House they passed a budget & sent it up to the Democrat-controlled Senate. The Senate was then obliged to vote on what the House has sent it; it did not pass, failing on a party-line vote. Nothing unusual about that when you've got a divided Congress.

Now, in normal times a Democrat-run Senate would have just passed their own Democrat-inclined budget bill and then sent it down to a Republican house and the two chambers would hash out a compromise and punt it to the President. What's unusual now is that rather than make a budget proposal of its own, the Senate Democrats have sat on their hands. They haven't brought a budget bill up for a vote. I'm not sure they've even introduced a fully-formed budget bill.

The Republicans in the Senate can't do jack about it. They don't run the Chamber. The House bill had to be voted on, but the Democrats running the Senate aren't obliged to consider any plan offered by the Senate Republicans. If the Senate Democrats won't come up with a budget bill of their own, and won't allow a vote on a Republican bill, then you don't get a budget passed to send to the Executive.

The irksome thing is that if you're going to pretend to try to govern responsibly, you at least to try to -- you know -- govern. They won't even try. They're scared to. They know the only way to fund what the last Congress saddled us with is to raise taxes, not just on the "rich" but on everybody; and probably expand the tax base beyond the present 51% or so who actually pay Federal taxes*. Proposing a budget of their own would be like putting a noose around their own necks.

So, instead of doing their jobs they're stalling and pointing fingers. It's disgraceful. I'm not aware that anything like it has happened in the last fifty or sixty years. A total abdication on their part.

The President, of course, can introduce bills to Congress via the Senate; and Obama at least went to the trouble to have his own budget bill introduced. It was such a disaster the Senate voted it down ninety-nine to zero (I don't know who was missing that day). Since then, the President has not introduced a formal budget proposal, he's only speechified about how awesome his proposal is, or will be, when he shows it to somebody.

What a bunch of knaves.

*This would be a good thing, and something we ought to see done: expand the tax base so that more people pay at least some Federal taxes. Democrats and Republicans alike are afraid to touch it.