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Charles Schumer (D, New York): the Democratic-controlled Senate will pass a budget.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  January 20th, 2013 at 11:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Please take note of this.  Democratic Senators are a funny bunch, sometimes.  Point out that they’re mandated, Constitutionally, to pass a budget every year? They yawn.  Remind them that it’s rank hypocrisy to lecture people on fiscal responsibility when they won’t show any?  You get a shrug in response.  Observe that shenanigans like Senate Democrats not doing a budget since 2009 is one major reason why people hate Congress more than Nickleback?  They’ll just chuckle and smirk.

But threaten not to pay them, and… well.  Suddenly it’s Civics Week at the Senate.

The Senate’s third-ranking Democrat said Sunday that the upper chamber will pass a budget this year, something House Republican leaders have insisted as they’ve agreed to hold a vote on a short-term increase in the nation’s borrowing limit.

[snip]

House Republicans last week proposed a vote on raising the debt ceiling for three months to give both chambers time to pass a budget for the next fiscal year. Under the proposal, if either chamber fails to adopt a budget by April 15, then that chamber’s members would then have their paychecks withheld.

I’ve omitted Schumer’s face-saving threat to raise taxes; the senior Senator from New York does not exactly have quite as much ability to dictate legislation as he thinks that he does, and the Democrats will be busy madly scrambling just to keep the next budget deficit at something near the trillion dollars per year that they’ve been cruising on since 2009.  Watching THAT suddenly go away will be worth the price of admission, right there: there’s a lot of Democratic cronies and interest groups raking in that money.

I really wish that we didn’t have to threaten Democratic Senators with docking their pay to make them act like, well, United States Senators. But apparently we do.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: While I’m sure that the “We were always going to pass a budget this year!” claim will fly with provincial hicks in Santa Cruz and the Upper West Side, I would suggest to Democrats that other parts of the country are more likely to see through that excuse.  Fair warning.

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COMMENTS

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  • septembergurl

    For “House Republicans” read “Paul Ryan” because this is his strategery now unfolding.

  • commonsenseobserver

    Well, that was quick.
    They will have three more months to tell us something else other than “we’ll write things down on a piece of paper” and “we’ll eat the rich”.

  • commonsenseobserver

    I’d bet Marco Rubio isn’t terribly happy.
    I’ll also bet either way, Democrats will be exposed as the frauds they are. Only that I’d prefer that we bide our time and bundle up the bonfire and fireworks for three months later, than try to set them off now one at a time and get snuffed out.

  • Jack_Savage

    And it took the GOP four years to come up with this in order to draw attention to the abdication of duties in the Senate?
    I wonder what other brilliant strategy they are ignoring at this very moment.

  • JKnight

    I’ll believe it when I see it. It hasn’t been a secret that there has been no Senate budget resolution because they needed to shield certain Democratic Senators from tough votes. With a number of Senators facing reelection in Red States next year, why would that change? I wouldn’t be surprised to hear arguments that the Budget Control Act of 2011 still someone supplants the need for a budget resolution for fiscal year 2014.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    Smart man, that. Getting the Democrats to react is step one on a positive process… looking for more to come as the Democrats in the Senate show us their tax-and-spend cards.