079 Capitol Hill United States Congress 1993 (Photo credit: David Holt London)
No Labels is a movement led by Democrats, Republicans and Independents that is dedicated to making our government stop the hyper-partisanship and actually do their job. What a refreshing idea. I’ve been receiving daily emails from the organization for a couple of weeks. I’d recommend signing up (you can easily do that on their home page) for them as well. They are brief updates. Today’s email notified me that President Obama had signed the No Budget No Pay Bill.
It was a monumental achievement for the movement that is quickly gaining popularity. The Bill states that if Congress can’t pass a budget their paychecks will be withheld from them. The U.S. Senate hasn’t passed a budget since April 2009 (the first iPad came out the next year—just some perspective). The organization hopes this is the first step in keeping our politicians accountable. As I have argued before politicians will only care if their entitlements are threatened.
As glad as I was to read the bill had passed, I was equally disappointed that President Obama failed to offer a budget for 2013. This is the 4th time in 5 years he has failed to propose a budget.
The organization writes:
The president is supposed to release his proposed budget on the first Monday of February. Yesterday marked the fourth time in five years that the administration has been late in releasing a budget to Congress. In addition, White House officials say that there is no timetable in place for Obama’s budget being submitted. Our president has a responsibility, just like Congress, to submit a budget and he needs to fulfill that obligation.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released that the 2013 budget deficit will amount to about $845 billion. Apparently, this is a sort of accomplishment to some pundits. They think we should be glad as a nation that our politicians have managed to run our annual deficit to below a trillion dollars. Last year we added $1.2 trillion to the overall debt.
I just find it a bit hypocritical that President Obama signs a bill basically telling Congress that if they don’t do a part of their jobs they won’t get paid; yet he won’t sign the same provision. I know it’s not necessarily the president’s job to propose budgets per se (more the U.S. Congress job), but the president is still expected to at least offer some type of budget. Otherwise he could propose many promises without any possibility of them feasibly being affordable.
What do you think of the bill?
Do you think it is hypocritical of President Obama to not hold himself to the same standard?
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Twitter: @adrakontaidis & @talkrealdebate
