Glad to see we are finally beginning to address one of the major causes of our debt. Too bad the cuts are so friggin' tiny:
A Scalpel, Not a Hatchet
Why is Obama cutting so little out of the Pentagon budget? He could cut even more.
The Truth Behind The GOP’s ‘1000 Days Without A Budget’ Canard
"Turn on any cable news channel this week and you’ll very likely hear a top Republican froth in anger over the fact that Senate Democrats haven’t passed a budget in more than 1000 days.
This particular talking point has been around for months — long before the Senate crossed the 1000 days threshold. Now that it’s budget season, Republicans hope it pops, filters up into mainstream news coverage, and sows doubt in the minds of voters who don’t understand the Congressional budget process, and don’t realize how unimportant, and in most crucial respects false, the line is. Alternatively, they hope Senate Dems get spooked and move ahead with a budget document that exposes their differences and leaves them open to political attack — but has no impact on policy whatsoever."
"But here are two things Republicans don’t mention about this 1000 days teapot tempest: First, Budget resolutions don’t have the force of law, and they aren’t the legislative tool that mandates what the government can and can not spend. That’s what appropriations bills are for, and for the last 1000 days Democrats and Republicans have worked together, however acrimoniously, to devise spending plans for the government.
Here’s how House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer explained it at a briefing with reporters last week.
“I have a bias. I served for 23 years on the Appropriations Committee. What does the budget do? The budget does one thing and really only one thing. It sets the parameters of spending and discretionary caps. Other than that, the Appropriations Committee is not bound by the Budget Committee’s priorities…. The fact is that you don’t need a budget. We can adopt appropriation bills and we can adopt authorization policies without a budget.”
But the much more important fact Republicans have left out is that the Senate passed a budget on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis last summer — one that unlike an annual “budget resolution” has the force of law behind it. The Budget Control Act — the law that resolved the debt limit fight — set binding appropriations caps for this fiscal year and the next and instituted a mechanism to contain spending on domestic discretionary programs — education, research, community health programs and the like — through the next decade.
As Hoyer explained, “We already have an agreed-upon cap on spending. So that this 1,000 days they haven’t passed a budget, the Republicans went for equal lengths of time without passing a budget. I think ‘05 and ‘06 — I don’t know whether it was a 1,000 days. But in any event, that is an argument to dissemble and distract the attention on the lack of productive accomplishment in the House of Representatives.”
When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says it would be redundant for the Senate to pass a budget, this is what he means. Republicans know this."
The Truth Behind The GOP’s ‘1000 Days Without A Budget’ Canard | TPMDC