Marathon Pundit: Two in a row: Obama's 2013 budget gets zero votes; McConnell, Walsh statements

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Two in a row: Obama's 2013 budget gets zero votes; McConnell, Walsh statements

For the second year in a row, President Obama's proposed budget received no votes.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had this to say about Obama's failure:

Once again, the Senate spoke unanimously against the president's unserious budget. For three years, Senate Democrats have refused to produce a budget, as required by law. And today, they soundly rejected the president's budget proposal which spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much. But that's not surprising when you consider just how bad the president's budget is. It's bad for jobs because it includes the biggest tax hike in history, it's bad for seniors because it lets Medicare and Social Security become insolvent and it's bad for our economy because it fails to address the nation’s $15 trillion debt.

In the lower chamber, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) has a novel suggestion about how to handle a budgetless Congress.

From a Walsh press release:

Today Congressman Joe Walsh (IL-8) doubled down on his support for the bipartisan No Budget, No Pay Act. The bill states that if Congress does not pass a budget and all appropriations bills by October 1st every year, then Members of Congress do not get paid. Congressman Walsh is a co-sponsor of this legislation and a member of the Fix Congress Now Caucus.

Walsh stated: "The No Budget, No Pay Act is simple–if we don't do our work, we don't get paid. It has been more than 1,000 days since Congress has passed a budget and 15 years since appropriation bills were passed on time. This is absolutely unacceptable and a complete failure.

"I came to Washington to change the way this town does business. This bill brings us one step closer to ending a dysfunctional Congress. Americans work hard to earn their paychecks and Members of Congress should not be any different. I took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, and we have a Constitutional responsibility to pass a budget. If we don't do the work, then we shouldn't get paid either. I plan to push this legislation in the coming weeks. The first step is encouraging House Leadership to bring this up for a vote immediately."