Dems’ Deeming Scheme Isn’t a Budget, It’s an Excuse
July 1, 2010
Dems’ Deeming Scheme Isn’t a Budget, It’s an Excuse
Speaker Nancy Pelosi - “[W]e promised the American people that we would have the most honest and open government and we will.” (Press stakeout, December 6, 2006).
Unable and unwilling to perform the most basic responsibility of governing, the Democratic Majority has instead put forward today a “budget enforcement resolution” that is long on self-congratulatory rhetoric and short on real fiscal responsibility. In reality, this “deeming scheme” does nothing to solve our nation’s fiscal crisis and actually tries to sell a $31 billion increase in funding as a “freeze.” What's worse, the Majority Leadership chose to use the legislation that should be funding our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, but is going nowhere thanks to intraparty squabbles, to deem this evasion of fiscal responsibility.
As has been widely reported, this year marks the first time in the modern era when the House will not even attempt to pass a budget. In years past when deemers were employed, they used the spending levels approved by the House during its budget debate. Those numbers would be developed through a Budget Committee markup, a Rules Committee hearing and markup, the consideration of as many as four alternatives during House debate, House debate, and finally, a vote of the full House. The Democratic Majority’s deeming scheme will not have gone through any committee process and will not even receive its own up or down vote.
The actual text of the deeming scheme seeks to rationalize away the Democratic Majority’s massive spending spree and job-killing agenda as “valuable contributions to fiscal responsibility.” Seriously. In case the Majority hadn’t heard, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has stated that the health care legislation that was billed as a deficit-reduction measure will actually increase it. And that statutory pay-go legislation that they love to tout hasn’t done anything to decrease our nation’s deficit outlook.
The Democratic Majority’s deemer goes on to express that “strengthening the economy and creating jobs are critical to reducing the long-term deficit.” Who could disagree with that? Strengthening the economy and creating jobs ARE critical to reducing the long-term deficit. Unfortunately, this deeming scheme does nothing to strengthen our economy or create jobs. In fact, it actually avoids the hard work of budgeting that economists say is critical to getting our economy back on track.
Rules Committee Ranking Republican David Dreier (R-CA) said the Democratic Majority’s failure to pass a budget is a failure that will have real consequences for them, and more important, the American people. “It has been said that if you can’t budget, you can’t govern. We have never seen a clearer case of that than we are today. This is not a budget, it’s an excuse. The American people need and deserve real leadership right now and they simply aren’t getting it from the Democratic Leadership in Washington.”
Committee on Rules Republicans
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