GOP Leader Blog

After Piling Up Record Deficits and Debt, Democrats New Plan Is No Budget At All
Posted by Kevin Boland on April 12, 2010
Washington Democrats' fiscal record has been abysmal.  Since they took control of the White House and Congress last January, they have lurched from spending program to spending program - the trillion "stimulus," a "cap-and-trade" national energy tax, a government takeover of health care - without addressing the question Americans care about most: jobs.   And in yet, despite the record deficits and debt the Democrats have racked up, they appear ready to ditch the budget process entirely this year, as Politico reported this morning:
Congress is poised to miss its April 15 deadline for finishing next year's budget without even considering a draft in either chamber.  Unlike citizens' tax-filing deadline, Congress's mid-April benchmark is nonbinding. And members seem to be in no rush to get the process going.... The practical consequences of failing to produce a federal budget for next year are about the same as they are for a family that doesn't set a plan for income and spending: Congress doesn't need a budget to tax or spend, but enforcing discipline is harder without one. And, like a family that misses out on efficiencies because it hasn't taken a hard look at its finances, Congress can't use reconciliation rules to cut the deficit if the House and the Senate don't adopt the same budget.
Fiscal sanity is desperately needed in Washington.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported this month that "[t]he federal government incurred a budget deficit of $714 billion in the first half of fiscal year 2010."  Douglas Elmendorf, the director of CBO, noted on his blog that
Spending other than that for the TARP and deposit insurance was $187 billion (or 11 percent) higher in the first six months of this year than during the same period last year....Outlays for net interest on the public debt grew by $26 billion (or 31 percent) compared to the first six months of fiscal year 2009.
The Heritage Foundation's 2010 Budget Chart Book illustrates just how out of whack the federal budget is compared to the family budget:

04-12-10 fed spending

An Economist/YouGov poll out last week found that almost two-thirds (62 percent) of Americans want the federal government to cut wasteful spending to reduce the deficit rather than raise taxes.    Meanwhile, Americans continue to ask: "where are the jobs?"  The latest unemployment report for March found that "[t]he average length of time the jobless have been out of work has reached 31.2 weeks in March.  That's the longest average jobless period since the government began collecting such data in 1948," according to the New York Times.  And an Associated Press survey of leading economists found that:
The pillars of Americans' financial security - jobs and home values - will stay shaky well into 2011, according to an Associated Press survey of leading economists.  The findings of the new AP Economy Survey, released Monday, point to an economic recovery that will move slowly and fitfully this year and next...The unemployment rate will stay stubbornly high the next two years. It will inch down to 9.3 percent by the end of this year and to 8.4 percent by the end of 2011.
That's hardly what the American people were promised when the Democrats passed their $1 trillion "stimulus" that they said would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent.  Any wonder only six percent of Americans think the "stimulus" has created any jobs. All Washington Democrats have to offer struggling families asking "where are the jobs?" is more spending, more debt, and more broken promises.  House Republicans have a better, "no cost jobs plan," that stops wasteful spending and tax hikes, helps small businesses, and removes unnecessary barriers to American energy production.  Read about it HERE.
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