Whatever Happened To The Federal Budget?
Jul 13th, 2010 | By Dawn R. Rivers | Category: Politics & PolicyIt’s kind of odd when you stop to consider it. We keep hearing about how Congressional budget hawks have been waking up and are starting to complain that Uncle Sam is going too far into debt. In fact, that sort of thing is what has supposedly caused Senate Republicans to dig in their heels and keep another extension of unemployment benefits from passing. They hope that voters are worried about the rising national debt and will punish Democrats for a lackluster jobs market, while Democrats hope voters will punish Republicans for cutting off what for many is a lifeline. Meanwhile, getting away from the political theater for a moment, you might be forgiven for wondering what is going on with that federal budget anyway?
The fact is that nothing is going on with the fiscal 2011 federal budget. For all the dignified Senatorial yelling and screaming, not one single, solitary appropriations bill has yet seen the light of day. For that matter, neither chamber of Congress has even passed a budget resolution yet. The most recent action on the matter was the adoption of an budget enforcement resolution that would, purportedly, keep the House from ignoring its own PAYGO rules. Of course, we all know that everybody has been busy but the end of the current fiscal year is less than 90 days away and nobody seems to even be talking about this. That means we’re likely to see another of those Omnibus Appropriations bills that may not address problems with the proposed SBA budget. That submission, you may recall, was deemed too heavy on paying for administrative deck chair shuffling and too skimpy on small business services.
