Parliamentary procedure

This article shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how the United States Congressional budget process works. The author of said article tries mightily to seem steeped in knowledge, or at least to refer to someone who is, but is fundamentally wrong.

Republicans have chastised the Democrats, those in the Senate, for "not having passed a budget in over 1000 days." Which, even the author of the article admits, is true. Drop dead true. The Senate hasn't. Not because Republicans are stopping them, but because they can't. They cannot get their own Senators to vote for anything approximating a budget because things are so bad. No one wants to take responsibility for the spending, the deficits, the debt ... anything.

But House Republicans have done so. In the minority, they have offered alternatives. In the majority, they have offered bold ideas, and have voted for them.

The process is pretty easy to understand: The House has to pass a budget and the Senate must do the same. In this case, the House did so, and sent it over to the Senate. All the Senate had to do was pass it's own, disagree with the House and request a conference, so a deal could be struck. The Democratic Senate couldn't muster enough will or votes to do that. The Republican House did. One cannot negotiate something with someone who has nothing. That's the point, the Democrats in the U.S. Senate have nothing.

And should be rightfully criticized for it.

Because it's not true. One doesn't have to keep debating, or speaking on the Senate floor, reading the phone book or the dictionary or whatever. All a Senator has to do is sit there and read the newspaper or a book or just take a nap, and when no one has anything else to say, just say "I note the absence of a quorum."

And that's it. He can do that for days, weeks, months. And he doesn't even have to be the one there to do it. He can have another Senator swap in for him if he wants while going home or out to dinner. In a nutshell, one Senator and his (or her) friends, can shut down the Senate over a bill and never let it come up for a majority vote.

Mr. Horney is being misleading.

There is a distinction between passing a budget and passing an appropriation. Without appropriations, the budget is merely a shopping list of things the government would like to buy. Since all Congressional appropriations must pass both houses, and revenue bills MUST pass the House (the House explicitly retains the "power of the purse"), it is pretty irrelevant as to whether the Senate can "deem" things with a supermajority vote. As a consequence, the Senate can never unilaterally pass an appropriations, even with 60 votes.

What Horney is referring to as a "deeming resolution" is only authorized for a limited purpose: In years when Congress is late in adopting, or does not adopt, a budget resolution, the House and Senate independently may adopt “deeming resolution” provisions for the purpose of enforcing certain budget levels. However, this is not the same as appropriating money.

A budget authorization sets policies and funding limits for agencies/programs -- basically it is when existing agencies, departments within the government, request funding for operations, expenditures, and other costs in maintaining all functions the department or agency is responsible for. Appropriations legislation is what a department or agency needs before it can cut a check or sign a contract. In theory, Congress could pass a budget, and then not appropriate any money for it.

Appropriations http://senate.gov/reference/glossary_term/appropriation.htm

Budget Authority http://senate.gov/reference/glossary_term/budget_authority.htm

Yeah, I'm glad I asked by proxy, but I'm pretty well up on reasons congress can't do its job. I'd like to hear how they did.

This article is a farce. First the lone source of information is the ultra left Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. What's important here is the reason that Senate leaders THEMSELVES gave for not passing a budget. Sen. Reid stated there was no need because the debt limit deal already laid out a broad fiscal outline. The problem is that the debt deal was a short term plan to reduce spending in return for raising the debt ceiling. That plan would achieve nowhere near the roughly $4 trillion in debt reduction needed over 10-12 years that the President himself has said is necessary. The lack of a budget plan by the Senate, or a remotely realistic one by the President, means that there is no long term plan anywhere on the table by Democrats (for 3 years) to reform entitlements and bring the debt to GDP over time to a sustainable level. THAT is the problem with no budget plan.

What's changed that laws have been able to pass without one party holding 60 seats in the Senate for decades previous?

http://youreconomicforecast.blogspot.com/
I genuinely apologise for spamming, but I discuss issues very similar to this on my blog. Please visit, follow or I would love to hear your opinion on such issues. Thank you.

Law making and sausage making. - Bismark

Regards