A dismal jobs report.. record spending.. record debt.. trial balloons about increasing taxes.. Washington still doesn't get it. And now the political games the Democrat leaders in Washington are playing with the federal budget are eerily reminiscent of a popular fairy tale we all read many, many years ago.
Remember Hans Christian Anderson's, the Emperor's New Clothes? The short tale is about some scam artist tailors who sold the Emperor "invisible" clothes that only the "pure of heart" could see. The vain Emperor, who was afraid of admitting he was fooled, paraded through town in his skivvies as all the people bought into the big scam and lavished praise on the Emperor's elegant new clothes. Everyone except for a boy who had nothing to do with the big lie - he laughed at the Emperor and stated the obvious, the Emperor had no clothes!
Well, it seems fairy tales can live forever, as this story is alive and well in Washington. Last week, Democrats offered a make believe budget, pretended to vote on it and are now proudly parading about town in their "new clothes." The problem is - no budget exists!
There is a rule on the books since 1974 that the House must pass a budget as a blueprint for federal spending. Without it, individual appropriation bills can't move forward, like those for defense, education, transportation and others. For the first time in over 30 years, and already months past the annual April 15th deadline, Congress has failed to enact a budget blueprint. Nothing written, nothing even discussed and nothing passed.
So why the refusal to pass a budget? News reports suggest the shamefully obvious: "there is little appetite for taking on these issues in an election year." In other words, Democrat leaders are avoiding completing one of Congress' central functions because they don't want their most vulnerable members to have to vote, before an election, for higher taxes or more debt to fund their runaway spending.
This plan makes the Emperor's tailors look like petty thieves.
Democrat leaders rushed to quell taxpayer criticism last Thursday by offering a rule on a totally separate bill that had a line in it which "deemed" (or in other words, "pretended") that there is a $1.121 trillion budget cap. And so, they passed a "budget." While they have gambled on whether this will help their electoral prospects in the fall, the danger in the absence of a real budget is that no one is held to account for the record deficit, the massive borrowing from China or the runaway spending in Washington.
Not to be outdone by the clever tailors, they are now taking this political charade a step further by saying that this year's record $1.6 trillion deficit is actually a CUT in spending and that anyone who didn't vote for the "Emperor's new clothes" is actually AGAINST cutting the deficit (oops - they mixed in a fairy tale with George Orwell's 1984)! These "down-is-up", backwards antics came in the form of an attack press release against me last Friday from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
To suggest this budget cuts anything is ridiculous, but more importantly, to pretend that the cap is a reasonable substitute for a formal congressional budget framework, is a joke. My vote against it at the end of last week is what I am now being attacked for.
This would all be very humorous if it weren't so serious. The same leaders engineering this reckless budget fiasco are the same leaders that spent a trillion dollars in borrowed money from China on a jobs stimulus bill that didn't create jobs. Now as we stare at nearly 10% unemployment, reports that our national debt will triple and an economy that is struggling to get out of a deep recession, Democrat leaders in Washington are floating the idea of raising taxes on the middle class. The absence of a budget makes the forthcoming tax climate a big unknown for businesses assessing their ability to expand and create jobs over the coming months.
At a time when Congress should be injecting confidence into our economy to start creating jobs again - whether through tax cuts, reduced regulation or putting in place a realistic plan to cut government spending - they are doing the exact opposite. Instead, they are adding more uncertainty in into an already timid economy by talking about raising taxes, increasing regulation and setting new records for debt and spending. Even a report released today by the US Conference Board found that slow gains in job growth are a result of businesses and job creators being unsure of our economic recovery.
Despite the Democrats best attempts to rewrite and change the ending of their adaptation of the Emperor's New Clothes, the public has caught onto this budgeting gimmick and knows that with record deficits, millions of Americans out of work, massive new spending and looming tax increases, no one is living "happily ever after."
