Will Senate Democrats Finally Write a Budget?

PrintSmith wrote: Yes, all bills seeking to raise revenue must originate in the House of Representatives and the Senate may propose or concur with their own amendments, as with any other bill. The Senate may entirely gut the original bill with its amendments if it so chooses, so there is not any responsibility for the House to "provide a budget that the Senate can agree with", none at all. To suggest otherwise is patently absurd on its face.

I guess it depends on how serious the house is about actually getting a budget. If they want to get down to work and have a budget that has a chance of working then they will take into consideration what will also pass in the senate with some compromises.....if all they want is to pass a budget they know will never get past the senate and obstruct the legislative process just because they can.....then yeah, there is no need to consider what the senate will do.....They are wasting their time, and the senates, and the country's money, passing bills that have no chance of going any further, and they know that, and they just don't care.

archer wrote:

PrintSmith wrote: Yes, all bills seeking to raise revenue must originate in the House of Representatives and the Senate may propose or concur with their own amendments, as with any other bill. The Senate may entirely gut the original bill with its amendments if it so chooses, so there is not any responsibility for the House to "provide a budget that the Senate can agree with", none at all. To suggest otherwise is patently absurd on its face.

I guess it depends on how serious the house is about actually getting a budget. If they want to get down to work and have a budget that has a chance of working then they will take into consideration what will also pass in the senate with some compromises.....if all they want is to pass a budget they know will never get past the senate and obstruct the legislative process just because they can.....then yeah, there is no need to consider what the senate will do.....They are wasting their time, and the senates, and the country's money, passing bills that have no chance of going any further, and they know that, and they just don't care.

They do care. They care about this country. If the president cared he would slice and dice Simpson/Bowles into something he could live with and let the process work.

If he did that he could have an easy win. Heck I could have voted for him.

I guess that works both ways as well, doesn't it - with regards to being serious about passing a budget that is. Once the majority leader of the Senate comes to understand his primary responsibility isn't to run interference for the titular head of his party sitting behind the Resolute Desk, get down to work and figure out a budget that has a chance of being accepted by the House instead of obstructing the legislative process because he can there might actually be a compromise that is worked out. Not a single person in the House of Representatives voted in favor of the budget outline offered for their consideration by Obama, not a single one. Reid and the Democrats should be adhering to federal law and annually passing a budget instead of going 3 years without fulfilling one of their primary responsibilities. Sure, it is going to take compromising with the Senators from the minority party to get that done, but if they were at all willing to compromise and work with the Republicans, whom they no longer are privileged with the power to wholly ignore as they were for most of Obama's first year in office, they might actually stumble onto one that the House finds palatable along the way. But the Democrats don't care about passing a budget - neither the House nor the Senate would do that when they enjoyed a majority in both chambers the last time an election was looming on the horizon and the Senate still refuses to even try with another one in the not too distant future.

PrintSmith wrote: I guess that works both ways as well, doesn't it - with regards to being serious about passing a budget that is. Once the majority leader of the Senate comes to understand his primary responsibility isn't to run interference for the titular head of his party sitting behind the Resolute Desk, get down to work and figure out a budget that has a chance of being accepted by the House .

PrintSmith wrote: all bills seeking to raise revenue must originate in the House of Representatives

So lets get that Republican house to do their job and propose a budget that has a chance of passing the Senate.

IMO they aren't going to solve long term fiscal problems writing a 1 year budget. The need to just pass a lean budget, and solve these other big issues one at a time with separate bills. Tax reforms, entitlement reforms. Another would be a long term plan for Defense and Transportation. The chance of that happening is 0.00000

PrintSmith wrote: I guess that works both ways as well, doesn't it - with regards to being serious about passing a budget that is. Once the majority leader of the Senate comes to understand his primary responsibility isn't to run interference for the titular head of his party sitting behind the Resolute Desk, get down to work and figure out a budget that has a chance of being accepted by the House instead of obstructing the legislative process because he can there might actually be a compromise that is worked out. Not a single person in the House of Representatives voted in favor of the budget outline offered for their consideration by Obama, not a single one. Reid and the Democrats should be adhering to federal law and annually passing a budget instead of going 3 years without fulfilling one of their primary responsibilities. Sure, it is going to take compromising with the Senators from the minority party to get that done, but if they were at all willing to compromise and work with the Republicans, whom they no longer are privileged with the power to wholly ignore as they were for most of Obama's first year in office, they might actually stumble onto one that the House finds palatable along the way. But the Democrats don't care about passing a budget - neither the House nor the Senate would do that when they enjoyed a majority in both chambers the last time an election was looming on the horizon and the Senate still refuses to even try with another one in the not too distant future.

What a load of crap! Please explain to this fencepost why the Senate must prepare a budget to suit the House, when you claim that it is patently absurd for the House to pass a budget to suit the Senate? Why should not the leadership of both chambers work together towards a common goal, rather than allow the House to pass partisan garbage that they know will not pass muster in the Senate? Even the Catholic church has proclaimed the House GOP budget as immoral, intended to reward those at the top income at the sacrifice of the poor. Now the GOP is trying to renege on the budget agreement they pushed just a few months ago.

Joe wrote: IMO they aren't going to solve long term fiscal problems writing a 1 year budget. The need to just pass a lean budget, and solve these other big issues one at a time with separate bills. Tax reforms, entitlement reforms. Another would be a long term plan for Defense and Transportation. The chance of that happening is 0.00000

I could be mistaken but I do not recall anyone who talked of multi-year budgets when I first started paying attention. That would have been sometime in the 70's.

The house and senate did agree upon a budget last fall that would default in non-discretionary cuts across the board in 2013, if they failed to reach a budget accord this year. The GOP is now trying to renege on that agreement.