I don’t think he’s even phoning it in anymore–I think President Obama has just totally given up. From the Washington Times:
President Obama’s budget suffered a second embarrassing defeat Wednesday, when senators voted 99-0 to reject it.
Coupled with the House’s rejection in March, 414-0, that means Mr. Obama’s budget has failed to win a single vote in support this year.
Republicans forced the vote by offering the president’s plan on the Senate floor….
From Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge:
Still confused why there are those who call America the USSA? Don’t be. As the following animation from the NYT so vividly shows, government benefits across the US have nearly tripled from a modest 7.8% of all personal income in 1969 to a ‘European’ 17.6% in 2009. And this before Obama went to town (as a reminder total debt has risen by over $4 trillion under Obama – a significant portfion of that has gone to fund social welfare)….
Posted in Culture, Demographics, Economics, Government, Society, Wealth
Tagged economic policy, federal budget
So we’re over 1,000 days without a budget and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate majority leader, doesn’t think we need one yet, and apparently has no problem not complying with the Congressional Budget Act. From HotAir:
In fact, [Sen. Reid] says he has no plans to bring a budget to the floor in 2012, either. He argues the 2012 budget is already done because last summer’s debt-ceiling deal included a few spending caps. Essentially, Reid wonders: Why do we need a long-term spending plan when we can stumble into some spending caps here and there?…
By never submitting a budget, enacting a few discretionary spending caps as a part of the Budget Control Act (a.k.a. the debt ceiling deal) and punting to the Super Committee that also punted on entitlement reform, Democrats avoid any difficult discussion of how to ensure the solvency of our entitlement programs. With no plan of their own on the table, they’re free to shoot down anything Republicans propose.
It’s no secret why no one wants to touch entitlements — but it is still the shame of Washington that nobody will.
A post by McQ at BlackFive on the defense budget and the coming cuts:
Here’s a little fact to keep in mind when considering the current cuts to spending at DoD (and let’s be clear, there is nothing wrong with appropriate cuts to defense spending), besides all the other ramifications it promises:
Defense accounts for less than 20 percent of the federal budget but already exceeds 50 percent of deficit-reduction efforts. And for every dollar the President hopes to save in domestic programs, he plans on saving $128 in defense.
And that’s without the looming sequestration cuts (keep in mind, most war fighting costs are not included in the budget) of another half trillion dollars.
Or said another way, the administration has decided that it will attempt to cut spending primarily with cuts to national defense. There is no serious program afoot to cut back the myriad of other government agencies and branches. In fact, many are expanding (see EPA, IRS, etc.)….
And this point made in the comments:
In an interview with Republican Alan Simpson, he states that the Defense Budget is responsible for 2/3 of discretionary spending. Discretionary spending is the portion of the budget that is negotiated between Congress and the President. So while it is approximate 20% of the federal budget, it is the largest portion of the negotiable portion of the budget. This is part of the reason it’s getting trimmed….
