This Wednesday, February 27, marks some watershed moments of liberty in United States History.
In 1922, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the 19th amendment and a woman’s right to vote
In 1951, the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, limiting a U.S. President to two terms.
In 1991, U.S. President George H.W. Bush announced live on television that “Kuwait is liberated”. (more…)
Time for another milestone. I noted it when it was 1,000 days past, but today we are now 1331 days without a budget. Nevermind all the doomsday talk for tomorrow — our fiscal situation is dire now.
April 29, 2009 is the last time Congress passed a budget. Obama’s two budgets proposals failed 0-97 in the Senate, and 0-414 in the House. No Democrats would vote for, or even sponsor, his proposals.
Right now we are about: $16,370,000,000,000 in debt. But that is not the whole picture. It doesn’t include entitlement debt, which makes the situation more egregious.
And what about the fiscal cliff? Harry Reid has decided to send Congress home for Christmas and reconvene on December 27th, and rules out a vote on Boehner’s “Plan B”. On the contrary, Eric Cantor has said the House has the votes for “Plan B”. “Plan B” raises taxes for taxpayers above $1 million, while the Senate version is a much lower, $250,000 threshold. More discussions, but no answers. We continue on in a state of uncertainty.
Yesterday, I wrote out a primer which showed all government debt, spending, and fiscal cliff solutions scaled down to manageable numbers. If you were to reduce equally everything by $10 million, you can understand the figures in amounts we are use to.
For instance:
Total Current Financial Picture for a Family of Three, on a $25,000 income
Annual Revenue: $25,000
Annual Spending: $38,000
Annual Expenses/Deficit per year: $13,000
Current Government “Shadow” Debt: $156,000 (ie. think – like your mortgage & credit cards)
Promised Future Entitlement Debt (SS and Medicare): $603,000
Total Family Debt on a $25,000 Income = $759,000 + $13,000 in annual added deficits
Debt “Fiscal Cliff” Solutions:
Obama’s Plan: cuts a mere $812 a year for 10 years and adds $1242 in revenue
Boehner’s Plan: cuts a mere $955 a year for 10 years and adds $955 in revenue.
You can read more here to see the breakdown and all calculations.
With 11 days out before the fiscal cliff deadline and no solution in sight, you can be sure the “no-budget clock” will also continue ticking. 1331 days…and counting.
I last posted on the budget when we went 1000 days without one.
Now we’re about to pass another milestone. This Sunday, April 29th, is the three-year anniversary since the last time we passed a budget.
Not that we haven’t tried…
Human Events is reporting that
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) was seriously thinking about getting a budget on the table, but according to The Hill, he “bowed to pressure from fellow Democrats on Tuesday and postponed a committee vote on a 2013 budget resolution, most likely until after the November elections
the last time Senate Democrats passed a budget, a gallon of gas cost about half what it does now, the debt was $4.5 trillion dollars less than it is today, and ObamaCare was just a twinkle in the president’s eye,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
Meanwhile, Katherine Revello over at Conservative Ntaews Daily, shared a picture from 4/18/12 from the Twitter account of the GOP Senate Budget Committee (@BudgetGOP) . The empty chairs at that meeting belong to the Democrat members of the Committee. Hard to get much done, I would think.
So, as of Sunday, April 29th, we will be officially 1096 days without a budget. 3 full years. Trillions more in debt.
Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget proposal was defeated Wednesday night in the House of Representatives by a vote of 414-0. Not a single Democrat supported it. This vote was reminiscent of the defeat of Obama’s budget last year in the Senate, by a vote of 97-0. No Democrats would put their name to that budget, either.
Clearly, considering that we are now 1065 days without a budget is result of the lack of any substantive and serious thought coming from the White House. Two years, two unanimous defeats in two different parts of Congress can only lead to one conclusion: Barack Obama’s economic ideas on taxes and deficit reduction are so vastly out of touch with both Republicans and Democrats that no one is willing to back them.
Jay Carney, the White House Press Secretary, resorted to insults instead of information today, when asked about Paul Ryan’s new budget proposal. The Washington Examiner reports,
Carney concluded that “the budget proposed by Chairman Ryan and supported overwhelmingly already by Republicans suggests that those problems” — aggressive ignorance and diminished comprehension — “exist in the minds of the supporters of that plan.”
Instead of offering ideas and counter-points to Ryan’s proposal, we get name calling from the White House. Is it any wonder that we are now 1057 days without a budget?