Blog: It's Official - No Budget This Year

Statement

Well it's official -- the Congress will pass no budget this year. Congressman Steny Hoyer, the Democratic Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, second in line behind Speaker Nancy Pelosi, made it official yesterday, the Democrats who control Congress aren't even going to try to pass a budget.

This is the first time since the law requiring a budget was passed back in 1974 that this has happened -- the first time in 37 years!

So what does it really mean? It means that there are no limits at all as to how much of our money they can spend. And it's been a spending orgy in Washington since the Democrats took control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Congress and the White House.

We've had deficits and red ink as far as the eye can see. Their own Congressional Budget Office projects over $1 trillion in deficit spending every year for the next 10 years (that's as far out as they go in their projections).

Democratic Congressman John Spratt had once criticized Republicans who were struggling to pass a budget, (Republicans did pass one), saying "If you can't budget, you can't govern." Now those words are coming back to bite him, because John Spratt is now the Democratic Chairman of the Budget Committee!

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who made the announcement that there would be no budget, once said that "Passing a budget is the most basic responsibility of governing." And he was right. But now they've given up any semblance of fiscal responsibility and sound governing.

The American people deserve better than this. They deserve leadership in Washington that will be careful with their hard-earned tax dollars. And they're sure not getting that right now.

That's why so many people are demanding that Washington change its ways, that it change the failed big-spending policies which are leading us down the road towards financial ruin. It's not too late, but it's getting awfully close.

A little over four months from now, Americans will be going to the polls. And they will be mad. There will be a price to be paid for the utter failure of this Congress to meet even the minimal responsibility of passing a budget. There will be an accounting. It's only a matter of time.

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