Monday, April 16, 2012

Still no budget!: Democrat Senate Laziest in 20 Years.

Harry Reid: "It would be foolish to pass a budget."
Washington DC, Apr 16, 2012. It has been almost 1000 days since Sen. Harry Reid, D-NV, and the Democrat Majority in Congress have passed a Federal budget.

Instead, the Democrat Senate is enacting continuing resolutions, to keep the government running, and piling on the national debt. They are ignoring their responsibility, all to the detriment of the American people.

The budget process forces Congress to set spending priorities to protect the people’s money and put it to its appropriate use. 

The result of this is that the deficit is soaring, causing a massive tax burden on future generations, and causing economic uncertainty, hindering job creation. It’s no wonder the U.S. economy’s growth has stagnated.

As the 1,000th day nears, here are some facts about America’s budget and why the Senate must take action to be stewards of the people’s money as the Constitution requires. The last time the Senate passed a budget was on April 29, 2009. Since that date, the federal government has spent $9.4 trillion, adding $4.1 trillion in debt.

The Democrat controlled Senate has failed to execute the most basic, fundamental function of governance at the worst possible time.
 
President Obama sets the tone by golfing and vacationing
The country’s fiscal house is in disarray, the U.S. credit rating is in continual jeopardy, entitlement spending is ballooning, defense spending is on the chopping block, and the economy is in shambles.

One thousand days without a budget is an embarrassing number, but the level of spending, deficits, and taxation that results from the Senate’s failure to exact even a modicum of fiscal discipline is terrifying. 

Senator Reid has said it would be “foolish” to pass a budget, but failing to pass it is proving to be beyond irresponsible. The middle class will be left holding the bag, paying for the Senate’s reckless negligence with soaring deficits, higher taxes, and a weak economy as far as the eye can see.

For those who need proof that the Senate was a do-nothing chamber in 2011 beyond the constant partisan bickering and failure to pass a federal budget, there is now hard evidence that it was among the laziest in 20 years.

In her latest report, Secretary of the Senate Nancy Erickson revealed a slew of data that put the first session of the 112th Senate at the bottom of Senates since 1992 in legislative productivity, an especially damning finding considering that it wasn’t an election year when congressional action is usually lower.

For example, while the Democratically-controlled Senate was in session for 170 days, it spent an average of just 6.5 hours in session on those days, the second lowest since 1992. Only 2008 logged a lower average of 5.4 hours a day, and that’s when action was put off because several senators were running for president, among them Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain.
 
Some of the laziest Democrats
On the passage of public laws, which is its most important job, the Senate passed just 90 bills, the second lowest in 20 years, and it passed a total of 402 measures, also the second lowest.
 
And as the president has been complaining about, the chamber confirmed a 20-year low of 19,815 judicial and other nominations.

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