WASHINGTON   –  U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (MO-08) this evening voted against a dramatically simplified version of a federal budget which was deemed to be passed in a motion allowing the House to consider emergency spending legislation.

“These are tax increases and spending increases, plain and simple.  It is a terrible process to shroud our federal budget in procedural maneuvers that offer approximately zero details to the American taxpayers about the Democrats’ plans for $1.2 trillion in discretionary spending,” Emerson said.

The deemed-and-passed budget framework allows an increase of $31 billion in discretionary federal spending for the next fiscal year, a number Emerson says is irresponsible given the expectation of a $1.6 trillion federal budget deficit for the year.

“Our country is running deeper and deeper into the red, and it is well past time to stop the federal budget from bleeding,” Emerson said.  “Four years of bad budgets have laid trillions in new debt at the feet of our children and grandchildren.  This course in unsustainable, and there is no excuse for why Congress cannot make the tough decisions American families are forced to make every day.”

This marks the first year since the establishment of the Budget Committee as a standing committee in 1974 that the Congress has not produced a budget.