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.
Representative Paul Ryan, issued a brutal statement along with the reality of what the Democrats have done and what this measure does not do:
What House Democratic leaders call a “budget enforcement resolution” is in fact just another “deeming” scheme – one that concedes they cannot meet their most fundamental governing responsibility: writing a congressional budget. They have created a masquerade that only advances their spend-as-you-go philosophy, accelerating the march toward a fiscal and economic crisis. They are doing so because a majority of rank-and-file Democrats cannot vote for a budget with trillion-dollar deficits. As even House Budget Committee Chairman Spratt has acknowledged: “You can say that that’s a lack of courage.”1 The analysis below makes the following points:
---This is not a budget. The measure fails to meet the most basic, commonly understood objectives of any budget. It does not set congressional priorities; it does not align overall spending, tax, deficit, and debt levels; and it does nothing to address the runaway spending of Federal entitlement programs.
---It is not a ‘congressional budget resolution.’ The measure does not satisfy even the most basic criteria of a budget resolution as set forth in the Congressional Budget Act.
---It creates a deception of spending ‘restraint.’ While claiming restraint in discretionary spending, the resolution increases non-emergency spending by $30 billion over 2010, and includes a number of gimmicks that give a green light to higher spending.
---It continues relying on the flawed and over-sold pay-as-you-go [pay-go] procedure. Paygo – which Democrats have used mainly to raise taxes, and have ignored when it was
inconvenient – does nothing to reduce deficits or restrain spending growth in existing law. The pay-go statute adopted in this resolution does not correct its fundamental flaws.
---Outsourcing fiscal responsibilities. The measure is another hand-off by the Democratic Majority of Congress’s power of the purse – this time relying on the Fiscal Commission created by the President to do Congress’s job.
That is all from page #1 and pages 2-11 explain the summary details listed above, showing the major points of what this does not do:
---It does not set priorities, or account for spending demands.
---It does nothing to control entitlement spending
---It makes no attempt to align spending, tax, deficit, and debt levels
Read the entire report.
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