Dems praised for budget deal
Congressional Democrats, not usually thought of as paragons of legislative efficiency, have succeeded where the Republicans have failed three of the six years they held power under President Bush. Before that, only once had Congress failed to adopt a resolution since the current budgeting process was adopted in 1976, and that was in 1999, when Senate Republicans and House Republicans couldn’t agree with one another. But that was sort of a no-harm-no-foul situation.
The Democrats not only have agreed on and adopted a budget resolution, they even did it early. The much-abused congressional budget calendar gives them until the end of June.
Now Congress can get down to the serious and onerous task of enacting the 12 spending bills that actually fund the government.
Those bills are supposed to be finished and sent to the president for signature in mid-September, before the start of the federal fiscal year Oct. 1.
Republican Congresses were chronically unable to do that, and last year the budget process was in such bad shape that the Republicans gave up and left the whole mess for the incoming Democrats to clean up, which they did but it was four months late.
The resolution calls for $2.9 trillion in federal spending – meaning next year’s budget will surely cross the $3 trillion mark – and doesn’t exactly square with Bush’s own tax and spending priorities.
The resolution doesn’t require his signature, so he can’t veto it, but he can veto the 12 individual spending bills and any changes in the law they may require.
The resolution also restores the pay-as-you-go rules that require new spending or tax cuts to be paid for by spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere in the budget.
The rules can be waived, but they do help keep down the deficit. The Republicans scrapped pay-go in 2001 to enact Bush’s tax cuts and their own spending plans.
Enacting a timely budget resolution doesn’t solve all problems, but it’s a start to restoring the order and discipline that broke down six years ago, with the result that federal spending increased by half.
It’s a good start, actually.