The deeming has resumed
Posted by Richard on July 2, 2010
Only 12% of likely voters think Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Lopsided majorities want the deficit drastically reduced (82%), but also think the country is already overtaxed (66%) and blame politicians' unwillingness to cut spending (83%) for the deficit. And the Congressional Budget Office has just released a grim long-term outlook (PDF) predicting things are going to get much worse.
In this climate, Congressional Socialist Democrats, already facing a tough election year, are reluctant to have to defend yet another monstrously bloated budget with yet another trillion-plus-dollar deficit. So, what to do? As Connie Hair reports, they've decided "we don't need no stinkin' budget" and have instead resurrected a sleazy strategy they were considering during the health care takeover debate:
Last night, as part of a procedural vote on the emergency war supplemental bill, House Democrats attached a document that "deemed as passed" a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget. The execution of the "deeming" document allows Democrats to start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the pesky constraints of a budget.
The procedural vote passed 215-210 with no Republicans voting in favor and 38 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote against deeming the faux budget resolution passed.
Never before — since the creation of the Congressional budget process — has the House failed to pass a budget, failed to propose a budget then deemed the non-existent budget as passed as a means to avoid a direct, recorded vote on a budget, but still allow Congress to spend taxpayer money.
House Budget Committee Ranking Member Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) warned this was the green light for Democrats to continue their out-of-control spending virtually unchecked.
"Facing a record deficit and a tidal wave of debt, House Democrats decided it was politically inconvenient to put forward a budget and account for their fiscal recklessness. With no priorities and no restraints, the spending, taxing, and borrowing will continue unchecked for the coming fiscal year," Ryan said. "The so-called ‘budget enforcement resolution' enforces no budget, but instead provides a green light for the Appropriators to continue spending, exacerbating our looming fiscal crisis."
The Socialist Democrats and their media mouthpieces call it a "continuing budget resolution" so people will think this is no different than the continuing resolutions passed in the past when the end of the fiscal year approached and one or more of the funding bills used to enact the budget had not yet been agreed on. But as the Republicans pointed out, this "deeming" meets none of the Congressional Budget Act criteria for a budget resolution.
The only criteria the Socialist Democrats' "deeming" meets are the criteria for a fraud and charade.
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