The Hill News

When Congress last passed a budget resolution, over three years ago, President Obama pledged a new era of fiscal responsibility: “And by making hard choices and challenging the old ways of doing business, we will cut in half the budget deficit we inherited within four years,” he said. “With this vote comes an obligation to pursue our efforts to go through the budget line-by-line, searching for additional savings. Like the families we serve, we must cut the things we don't need to invest in those we do.”
 
If only it had worked out that way. The debt has only mushroomed to more than $15.6 trillion (with a budget deficit projected at $1.2 trillion this fiscal year by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office). Meanwhile, both political parties point fingers and attempt to deflect blame for our budget morass.
 
But the partisan blame game, though rooted in fact, offers only part of the picture as to why the federal budget process has broken d! own. Surely one key factor is that, since the passage of that April 2009 spending resolution, Congress has not passed a budgetâ€"although they are required by law to pass a budget each by April 15 of each year. That failure represents a complete abdication of one of the legislative body’s most important duties, to set spending priorities for the federal government.

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