This week House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) announced that House Democrats will not pass a budget this year.  A budget is essentially a roadmap, a plan for where we’re going as a nation, and it is critical to getting spending under control.   Since passage of the Congressional Budget Act in 1974, the House has never failed to pass a budget resolution.  Hoyer’s announcement confirms Congressional Democrats’ failure to live up to what Hoyer himself has called “the most basic responsibility” of governing. 

Throughout Northern California, working families sit down and figure out their budget.  They make hard choices and live within their means because it’s the responsible thing to do.  Sadly, Congressional Democrats don’t feel that same obligation as the stewards of the federal budget.  Instead of getting together and making tough decisions, they’ve chosen to keep their head in the sand by not passing a budget.  Failure to even propose a budget fundamentally means that Congressional Democrats have no plan.  A problem won’t go away just by ignoring it – look at what has happened in California.  It will require real leadership and a commitment to fiscal discipline to tackle the out-of-control spending and debt that threatens American jobs and our economic prosperity.  Instead of acknowledging the skyrocketing debt, out of political expedience, they have chosen to ignore it.  But the American people won’t ignore the massive tax increases coming their way, or the crushing burden of debt Washington is leaving our children and grandchildren.