Barack Nobudget

Right Across The Atlantic ^ | Michael Merritt

[Michael van der Galien]

It’s official, folks. Two years running Congress has refused, in one way or another, to take up a budget presented by President Barack Obama. As we all know, House Democrats just didn’t even bother to touch any budget last year, as is their constitutional duty. Their attitude toward budgeting this year remains the same, and it’s disgusting. The difference is that this time around Senate Democrats actually took a vote on the budget, and still polled unanimously to not move forward on a budget sent in by someone who is supposedly their guy in the White House.

It is true, of course, that all budgetary bills need to start in the House, but that doesn’t prevent senators from holding votes, anyway. Even then, Democrats still refused to vote in the affirmative. You’d think they’d want to show a force of unity against the Republicans, but I guess not.

Rather, even they’ve accepted that a Republican budget will be the starting point for negotiations. With that, and last year’s kerfuffle, it’s almost like Obama’s become irrelevant when it comes to budgetary matters. The guy only has one year left, if not re-elected, so maybe Congressional Democrats will give him more support next year. However, if the past two years have taught us anything, they probably won’t.