With all of the attention on the BP oil spill, the European debt crisis and even financial regulatory reform, the fact that Congress hasn’t passed (and will likely not pass) a federal budget for fiscal year 2011 is flying under the radar.
To quote the words of the House Majority Leader, “The most basic responsibility of governing — enacting a budget.”
So what has Congress been so busy doing that they can’t find the time to pass a budget?
Courtesy of Bankrupting America.
Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan explains his budget policy ideas…
“We will cut spending.”
-By Warner Todd Huston
For decades I have been sick and tired unto death of the massive overspending, arrogance, and outright graft of Congress. Like many of you I felt the Tea Party movement was a bolt out of the blue, but a welcome one. I was also jazzed when the 2010 Republican wave overtook Washington and installed so many freshmen congressmen pledging to cut the federal budget. Also like many of you I am frustrated with the slow pace of cuts and would love to see them come faster.
One of the loudest voices decrying the slow pace of the cuts often comes from the radio talkers. Folks like Limbaugh and Levin, for instance, are heard to lament that the GOP is not being proactive enough with the budget cuts. They say the $10 billion that the House Republicans have been successful in cutting so far with the pair of short-term continuing budgets is a drop in the bucket, that it is almost a joke.
It’s easy to make the case, too, that saving $10 billion is the least of efforts especially when Obama has run us up to $2.5 trillion in debt… and here is where the “but” comes in (not to mention where I get hardcore conservatives mad at me).
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Let’s Have Some Patience on the Budget Cuts”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Pork, pork, pork. It’s enough pork to make a Southside Chicago BBQ joint greasy with envy. Yes, it’s a bacchanalia of pork spending and earmarks in the Omnibus spending bill, for sure, and we now have the database to prove it.
Senator Tom Coburn has posted a Google Spreadsheet data base document on line and there you can see how much the earmark costs us, where it is going, and which of our congressmen asked for the earmark.
There’s One million, five hundred eighteen thousand dollars for animal vaccines in Greenport, New York. There’s three hundred grand for the study of phytoplankton in Boothbay, Maine. Millions going to various drug enforcement programs across the country. Ten mil is being shelled out to the “John P. Murtha Foundation” for… well, just because John was such a prince of a guy. There’s a mil six hundred thou for the “Brain Safety Net,” so that brains can be safe… and stuff. Lots of cash for the study of renewable energy, various road and bridge projects, and educational efforts. Even more cash to the Department of Energy for the “Office of Science” because, well, only government can do science, ya know?
So far there have been 6,715 earmarks attached to the Fiscal 2011 Omnibus Spending bill that Congress is now considering.
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A Detailed List of Earmarks in The Omnibus Spending Bill”
-By Warner Todd Huston
They call it a “recruitment tool,” but it is little else but yet another way for Congressional elites to give each other favors on the taxpayer’s dime. As Americans are increasingly losing jobs, even their homes, congressmen are using taxpayer’s dollars to pay off the student loans of their staffers. Worse, this has been going on since 1990.
The law was enacted in 1990 and updated in 2000 with the idea that congress could use this incentive to lure good applicants to congressional staffs.
As a 2002 report on the program states:
More than a decade ago, Congress authorized a student loan repayment program for highly qualified professional, administrative, and technical federal personnel covered by the General Schedule (GS). Section 1206(b) of P.L. 101-510, enacted on November 5, 1990,1 responded to a recommendation of the National Commission on the Public Service that a loan forgiveness program be established for federal service.2 The commission found, in its April 1989 report, that the federal government had serious problems in recruiting and retaining a quality workforce. Student loan repayment is viewed as a way to make government service more attractive to candidates, many of whom have incurred significant student loan debts in acquiring their education.
I like that: “Student loan repayment is viewed as a way to make government service more attractive to candidates…”
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Elite Favors: Congressmen Payoff Staffer’s College Loans”
-By Warner Todd Huston
“I think people underestimate how disastrous this could be,” says a Democrat Congressional staffer who worries over losing his job once all the new Republicans sweep into Congress after the November elections. Politico’s Erika Lovley seems also to worry about the “massive layoffs” that will come to staffers in November. But to me this is one type of job loss to celebrate not cry over.
Lovley gravely warns that if Republicans win big in the elections, “it’s not just elected Democrats who will be unemployed — more than 1,500 Democratic staffers could lose their jobs, with layoffs stretching from low-wage staff assistants to six-figure committee aides.”
Oh the humanities. Time to warm up the tiniest violin in the world to accompany this pity party.
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Politico Cries Over Lost Jobs of Hill Staffers in November”