There were numerous, and very determined, attempts made by leading GOP senators to challenge those in the DEMOCRAT majority, along with our "Dear Beloved Leader", Barry "Almighty", to work with Senate Republicans on a serious budget, before Senate Democrats took it upon themselves to force votes on four Republican budget plans, as well as one based on Barry's sorry-assed excuse for a budget plan. And all was for naught, obviously. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) made his frustration well-known during a Wednesday press conference on Capitol Hill saying, “People say, ‘Compromise! Compromise! Be a moderate.’” Adding that, “Well, how do we do that if the other side has no plan and won’t talk to us? How do you find middle ground with a party that has no plan?” Ah, quite the quandary.
But you see, these days Senate Democrats seem to be much more interested in the politics of things than they are in actually doing something and working with others to get our country moving in the right direction again, both fiscally and economically. So all that the stellar Democrat leadership could muster up for themselves was to force votes on the five budget proposals: one offered by Sen. Paul; one each offered by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah); House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) proposal, and a measure modeled after Barry "Almighty’s" budget, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.). All failed. And it was the plan modeled after the Barry budget that was resoundingly rejected without receiving a single vote, 99-0. The Ryan budget failed by a vote of 58-41.
Sen. Sessions even went so far as to actually refer to Barry's budget as being “utterly irresponsible,” during the press conference held just hours before the Senate vote went down. “A sitting president of the United States seeking reelection can’t lay out a plan that will gain a single vote in the House or Senate for the financial future of America. It’s really a stunning event that speaks volumes,” Sessions said, pretty much hitting the nail on the head. Seriously folks, here we have a president who while he very much enjoys his title, has consistently demonstrated that he has very little interest in actually doing the job. Thus he either refuses to submit, or is incapable of submitting, a serious attempt at a budget. And still there are people who think that he's a man worthy of being re-elected. What a joke!
Though never seriously expecting their bills to pass in the Democrat-controlled chamber, the Republican senators said they did relish the opportunity to contrast their vision with that of the majority party. A majority party which, by the way, has failed to pass a budget in over three years. “What you’re going to witness today on the Senate floor is a simple and unambiguous fact, and that is: There is one party that is seriously addressing these problems with specific reform ideas, with a specific vision for how we get on a sustainable fiscal path,” said Toomey. “And there’s another party that absolutely refuses to say anything about what their vision is, what they intend to do." Adding that, “It is just nothing less than shocking to me.” Actually, Shocking is more than a bit of an understatement.
Sen. Paul said that all of the Republican plans would balance the budget. Paul told reporters, “We have a budget that will balance in 5 years, the Senate Democrats have no budget.” He went on to say, “The president has a budget that never balances. We’ve got infinity on one side and 5 years on the other. How do you find middle ground?” And yet it is always the Republicans who are accused of an unwillingness to "compromise. Paul’s measure would eliminate the Commerce, Education, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Energy Departments, cut spending by $11 trillion more than the president’s budget, create a 17 percent flat tax and implement entitlement reforms. “At least we’re putting a plan forward, we’re doing our job,” Paul said. “Those who aren’t, I think, should give back their salary." Can't argue with that.
And in what has become the typical behavior now to be expected from the Democrats in Congress, old "Dingy Harry" Reid actually went so far as to call the Republican-sponsored budgets “ridiculous.” “They’re really, really absurd,” "Dingy" said Tuesday. “These are all just for show.” So I guess, at least according to "Dingy", it's just better to do nothing. Sen. Lee, whose proposal would cut $9.6 trillion over 10 years, hopes the votes are the beginning of a national dialogue. “The votes that we cast today are the beginning and by no means the end of the necessary action that is being discussed today,” he said. I think that all parties concerned here, have now come to the realization, to one degree or another, that old "Dingy Harry" and the Democrats have absolutely zero intention of passing any kind of an actual budget before the election.
“It will end one way or another in the U.S. government balancing its budget,” Lee said. “But how we get there matters.” He added: “If we wait until the bond market forces us into a position of immediate balance the result will be destructive, it will be devastating.” Lee said we can avoid more economic pain “if we start making the incremental and necessary changes now.” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis), meanwhile, said the GOP is willing to work with Senate Democrats and the president. “We’re willing to work with anybody who’s willing to, first of all, acknowledge the problem and then work in good faith to solve the problem,” Johnson said But the Wisconsin conservative offered some advice to “the Democratic side of the aisle”: “They should compromise with each other to -- I guess with the president -- to develop a budget to maybe get one vote from a member of his own party,” he said.
With the next election essentially just around the corner, Democrats remain convinced that they will be able to run the clock out and gain much more, politically, by simply avoiding the passage of any kind of actual budget, and continue to employ their standard tactic of using continuing resolutions and arguments over the debt ceiling to win over voters. And thus we find ourselves in a rather precarious position thanks to the Democrats. Each and every budget proposal presented by the Republicans carry the goals of balancing the budget, cutting spending and reforming entitlements, and vary only in time frames and reduction amounts. But as we have continued to be witness to, the Democrats have absolutely no interest whatsoever in pursuing anything other than stomping on the gas pedal as we head toward the cliff.
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