According to law, the president must submit a formal budget to the House of Representatives by the first Monday of February every year.
Congressman Paul Ryan, Chairman of the House Budget Committee, sent a formal request to the White House yesterday asking if they would be submitting a budget this year.
The last time President Obama submitted a formal budget was his first year in office, 2009. The country has been running on continuing resolutions ever since.
Various forms of Obama’s budget have reached Congress in the last four years, and not one of them has gotten a single vote from either party in either the House or Senate. It’s been almost 1400 days since Congress passed a budget.
According to The Hill, an administration source said “no decisions” had been made on budget timing this year.
The Democrats accuse Paul Ryan of pouring gasoline on a fire by making this request in the middle of all the budget finagling going on in Washington.
Conservatives are upset that Obama has taken the $800 billion stimulus package passed in 2009 and parlayed it into a permanent $900 billion increase in spending. That’s right, Obama has spent over $1 trillion in the red in each of the last four years.
The Constitution gives all fiscal responsibilities for the Republic to the House of Representatives and ONLY to the House of Representatives. Technically, the Senate is not even allowed to initiate budgetary bills, and the President is totally out of the loop with the exception of his annual budget.
Given our dire economic situation, this is an impeachable offense by the President. Lucky for Obama, the Senate, which is the formal body that considers impeachment, is controlled by the Democrats.
Maybe that will change in 2 years when Americans go to the polls again.
Hope for change.
