-By Warner Todd Huston
All the remaining Illinois Republican congressmen have signed onto the House leadership’s new bill with a provision that if Congress doesn’t pass an official budget, then House members won’t get paid.
The “No Budget, No Pay Act” (H.R. 325) garnered the support of Illinois’ Republicans, but also got a “yea” vote from several Illinois Democrats, as well.
This legislation suspends the debt limit and makes mandatory that the House and Senate adopt a budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2014 by April 15, 2013. But if either body does not adopt a budget, members of that body will have their pay put into an escrow account beginning April 16, 2013 until the body adopts a budget. These funds will be released when a budget is adopted or at the end of the current Congress (in compliance with the 27th Amendment).
GOP “Yeas”
Peter Roskam [R-6], Rep Lipinski, Daniel [R-3], Rodney Dais [R-13], Randy Hultgren [R-14], John Shimkus [R-15], Adam Kinzinger [R-16], Aaron Schock [R-18].
Democrat “Yeas”
Daniel Lapinski [D-3], Tammy Duckworth [D-8], Brad Scneider [D-10], Bill Foster [D-11], Bill Enyart [D-12], Cheri Bustos [D-17].
“Nay” Votes
Luis Gutierrez [D-4], Danny K. Davis [D-7], Jan Schakowsky [D-9], Also Bobby Rush [D-1] abstained.
Two GOP congressmen released statements on the “No Budget, No Pay Act.”
Peter Roskam, 6th District
“Today, the House of Representatives passed the No Budget, No Pay Act and sent an unequivocal message to the Democrat-controlled Senate: the time for shirking your basic responsibilities is over. It is astounding that the last time the United States Senate passed a budget was the day Rod Blagojevich got indicted. For 1,365 days, half of Congress has been silent on the coming debt crisis.
“The time is now to bring both parties and both chambers to the table and lay out our long term debt and deficit plans. For two years, the House of Representatives has put forward budgets to avert the coming fiscal crisis and put America back on a path to prosperity. At a staggering $16.4 trillion in debt and counting, Washington must meet the challenge head-on and pass a budget out of both chambers.”
Adam Kinzinger, 16th District
“One of the most important roles of the federal government is to implement a budget. While the House has managed to carry out this basic function, the Senate has failed to do so for the last four years.
“As a result the House is putting an end to the Senate’s negligence and passed legislation that requires both the House and Senate to pass a budget. If we fail to do so, Congress won’t receive a paycheck.
“It’s time for Washington to tackle the government’s spending addiction. If we can’t do even the most basic responsibilities that our constituents sent us here to do, we don’t deserve to get paid.”
Critics say that the 27th Amendment makes this effort toothless as Congressional pay has to be disbursed regardless, so holding it for a while is a meaningless gesture.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.