CS Monitor: No budget bill for 2012, either?

[Winehole23]

Seeking to avoid a politically toxic vote, Congress has failed to pass a federal budget for three years. This year's new twist? Congress might not even try.




On Monday, President Obama (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Barack+Obama) presented his proposed budget for fiscal year 2013. It's going nowhere on Capitol Hill (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Capitol+Hill), legislators and political analysts agree. What's more, Senate Democratic leaders show no intention of presenting their own budget proposals – or taking up any lobbed over from House Republicans.



Technically, they don't have to, Senate majority leader Harry Reid (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Harry+Reid) (D) of Nevada (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Nevada) said on Feb. 3. He suggested that the terms of last summer’s debt-ceiling agreement provide all the guidance that Congress needs for the coming fiscal year.



Indeed, with three mammoth spending measures – the Bush-tax cuts, the payroll-tax holiday, and automatic spending cuts triggered by the debt-ceiling deal – that must be settled by Dec. 31, most likely by the lame-duck session of Congress after the November elections, there is little appetite among members to expend political capital now on a budget.


The cost, say analysts, is that Congress is once again allowing the federal budget process to remain rudderless and lawmakers unaccountable as the nation lurches toward fiscal crisis.


“Congress is legally required to consider a budget resolution every year, but there’s no penalty for not doing it, and no one has any standing to sue,” says Stan Collender (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Stan+Collender), a longtime congressional budget analyst with Qorvis Communications (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/Qorvis+Communications+LLC) in Washington.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/0214/No-budget-No-problem!-The-strange-politics-behind-a-budgetless-America

[CosmicCowboy]

That wasn't a budget, that was an Obama campaign manifesto. BOTH sides of the aisle in the House and Senate don't want anything to do with it.

[Winehole23]

makes me wonder what the hell we elect them for

[DarrinS]

Hmmmm. I'm called a partisan hack when I bring up this issue.

[Winehole23]

for bringing it up, or for the spin you impart to it?

[Winehole23]

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184967

[TeyshaBlue]

Yeah, I can see where "Obama Lies about the ‘Do-Nothing Congress’
" is exactly the same as "CS Monitor: No budget bill for 2012, either?


:facepalm.

[coyotes_geek]

It is pretty pathetic that it's come to this. A complete derelection of duty by Obama and congress.


makes me wonder what the hell we elect them for

Apparantely to just hate the other team.

[EVAY]

I was appalled at the budget that was announced and I was appalled at the reaction to it by the congress.

So, pretty much, this election year seems to be, in a word, appalling.

It's going to come down to either Obama and Romney or Obama and Santorum.

Either way, I may sit out an election for the first time in a long adult life.

[Winehole23]

David Frum provides a bit of historical context (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/15/dead-on-arrival.html#body_text_2).



But the patient that is most sick is not any one particular budget. It's the way America does budgeting. If we're going to understand why the American fiscal system seems now to be breaking down, maybe it would be helpful to start by recalling how that system functioned when it did function.

For the first 130 years or so of the republic's life, the United States did not budget in any meaningful way at all. Congress appropriated funds, and whatever those appropriations totaled over the course of the year was that year's budget.

This ramshackle method of procedure endured through the First World War, incredibly enough.

Through the early 20th century, Progressives urged the adoption of some kind of system whereby spending might be announced in advance, a practice instituted in Great Britain by William Gladstone in the 1850s.

Not until 1921 did the United States institute anything we'd today call "budgeting." That year's Budget and Accounting Act created the Bureau of the Budget, enabling the president at last to submit his requests to Congress in a coherent whole. It created at the same time the General Accounting Office, expanding presidential power to check and enforce that the requested funds were spent as intended.

The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 is a law whose title almost commands the eyes to close, yet at the time it represented a revolution in American governance - a revolution only made possible by the smashing Republican election victories of 1918 and 1920.

[EVAY]

David Frum provides a bit of historical context (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/15/dead-on-arrival.html#body_text_2).

Fascinating. I had no idea. Thanks, WH.

[RandomGuy]

That wasn't a budget, that was an Obama campaign manifesto. BOTH sides of the aisle in the House and Senate don't want anything to do with it.

The Republicans in Congress shit on the hand he extended to them.

Repeatedly.

It is kind of obvious that they had no intention of ever working with him. Most on the left regarded him as a total sucker for even trying.

What is his motivation to keep trying? Would you keep trying?

Or would you, at some point, grow a pair, and call out the people who so obviously care far less about doing something than furthering their political party?

[RandomGuy]

http://images1.dailykos.com/i/user/2722/TMW2011-07-20colorKOS.png

[Winehole23]

Apparently to just hate the other team.They get to hand out goodies too, never mind the budget.

[coyotes_geek]

What is his motivation to keep trying?

Um, it being part of the job description? A job that he willingly volunteered for.

[CosmicCowboy]

Or would you, at some point, grow a pair, and call out the people who so obviously care far less about doing something than furthering their political party?

:lmao

I didn't realize that Saint Obama wasn't trying to further his party and his reelection. So, you are saying that the only gamesmanship is by the Republicans?

Really...:rolleyes

[Winehole23]

Fascinating. I had no idea. Thanks, WH.Scares me. The budget has become politically toxic.

Thus, whatever the appropriation is, is the budget. Just like we did it in the good old days.

[Winehole23]

No budget bill necessary.

[Winehole23]

an emerging bipartisan consensus (http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_102/Budget_Leaves_House_Republicans_in_a_Bind-212766-1.html?zkPrintable=true)?

[xrayzebra]

Funny, everyone says Congress, why don't the say the Senate. The House has
passed a budget.

[Winehole23]

oh? gotta link for that?

[xrayzebra]

oh? gotta link for that?

House Approves Republican Budget Plan to Cut Trillions
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/16/us/politics/16congress.html?_r=1

Please note date....... April 2011

[Winehole23]

last year

[Winehole23]

topic is the 2012

[xrayzebra]

topic is the 2012

Typical posters on this forum. Just make statements painting a wide
path. The Republicans have been doing their work in the house. Old
mealy mouth Reid has been obama's work, doing nothing.

But for you slow thinkers. The point I made, not try, but made, is that
it is not Congress who is holding things up, it is the Dimm-o-crap
Senate who is holding up everything.

Get up-to-date.

Now bring on the one-liners, I know you cant do better, cause you
don't know beans about what you are talking about.

[Winehole23]

it is the Dimm-o-crap
Senate who is holding up everything.of course. some things never change (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1206375&highlight=dimm-o-craps#post1206375).

Now bring on the one-liners, I know you cant do better, cause you
don't know beans about what you are talking about.


Show us the way, sensei...

[xrayzebra]

Hole23, you never fail to fulfill my expectations.

[Winehole23]

back-handed, as ever.

can't you hit any harder than that? maybe it will be easier next time if you put your cocktail down first.

:lol:toast

[TeyshaBlue]

Neckbeard!

[TeyshaBlue]

Gonna use it till I figure out what it means. lol

[Winehole23]

no neck beard here. had one once; it was pretty scratchy.

[xrayzebra]

back-handed, as ever.

can't you hit any harder than that? maybe it will be easier next time if you put your cocktail down first.

:lol:toast

What's the matter, jealous I can afford one and you cant......:whine

[Winehole23]

Gonna use it till I figure out what it means. lol

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1dwEH7DJJwc/Tdm2msvlWxI/AAAAAAAAAKY/ORanBD_bf0Q/s400/neckbeard.jpg

[coyotes_geek]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1dwEH7DJJwc/Tdm2msvlWxI/AAAAAAAAAKY/ORanBD_bf0Q/s400/neckbeard.jpg

Pretty sure this guy made me a sandwich at Thundercloud Subs today.

Then again pretty much everyone who works at Thundercloud looks like this, so who can be certain?

[TeyshaBlue]

*sigh* Probably a future son-in-law tbh.:depressed

[Winehole23]

Been to many T-Clouds. I can second that impression.

Used to be more of a straight up hippie/stoner vibe. Counter folk look a little more emo now, but the experience is basically identical to my mid-eighties one, when I first came to Austin.

[Winehole23]

What's the matter, jealous I can afford one and you cant......:whineNot at all. Just had a couple with my sweetie, in fact.

You familiar with Willett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_Bourbon_Distillers)?