"The Senate hasn't passed a budget in 4 years"- ??

[Chicago Jake]

I keep hearing that "the Senate hasn't passed a budget in four years - tell Harry Reid to do his job!"

But WTF does that mean? It isn't the Senate's job to spend money; that's the House. And it isn't like money isn't getting spent, for crying out loud. They are spending like drunken sailors!

So just what is the Senate's "job" that they are refusing to do? And who gave them that job? And how would we be better off if they did it?

[New Mama]

This is how it works. The President submits a budget to Congress. Congress votes on it (and usually ch-ch-changes it) then passes it on to the Senate for confirmation for the eventual signing by POTUS. Congress has passed a budget in the past two years but the Senate, yes Harry refuses to bring it up for a vote. The Senate can ch-ch-change it after they get it from Congress too. It's called reconciliation or something like that.

The last budget, Obama's first and only, was passed in 2009. It had extraordinary spending in the form of the 'stimulus'. The Senate does not want to stop the spending machine. The Senate made a deal with the devil on the 'fiscal cliff' negoiations last fall before the election. Congress agreed to increasing the debt ceiling in exchange for automatic cuts to all government spending on January 1, 2013. That was once again extended in the last hours of 2012 with another increase in the debt ceiling by Congress with the spending cuts extended to March 1st.

Obama was supposed to submit his budget to Congress by January 31st this year but it's late again. Obama and the left like to blame Congress for not paying bills it authorized in 2009 (when democrats controlled Congress) and demands that the debt ceiling be increased, but the democratically controlled Senate will not take up a budget that reduces spending. Who knows what will happen next!

[Chicago Jake]

Well it sounds like a bullshit accusation to me. The way I see it, they are SPENDING TOO MUCH, and they all deserve to be called out on that. "Passing a budget" is a red herring and distracts from the real problem of TOO MUCH SPENDING.

[New Mama]

Feb 5, 2013 16:41:43 GMT -6 Chicago Jake said:

Well it sounds like a bullshit accusation to me. The way I see it, they are SPENDING TOO MUCH, and they all deserve to be called out on that. "Passing a budget" is a red herring and distracts from the real problem of TOO MUCH SPENDING.

Jake, the only way to reduce spending is to pass a new budget with lower spending. They have been extending the BIG one via 'resolutions' since 2009 to avoid a complete government shut down.