Botched deadlines and sloppy governance are hallmarks of Barack Obama's presidency. Every president is required by statute to submit a
As the story notes, Obama's FY 2014 budget proposal was submitted two months late; his previous two offerings (both tardy) received a grand total ofzero votes in both houses of Congress. Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush produced four delayed budget blueprints --combined. Obama just hit number five. He's missed more budget deadlines than any president since the current law was passed in the early 1920's. Chalk up another "unprecedented" achievement for Team O. High fives all around. The CQstory goes on to speculate that Senate Democrats will once again shirk their budget duties this year for the explicit purpose of evading tough pre-election votes:
Harry Reid's Democrats eschewed legally-required budgeting for more than three consecutive years in pursuit of similar political ends. The basic idea was todemagogue Republican budget proposals while depriving the country of any specific counter-proposal. Democrats determined that committing their ideas to paper and allowing the opposition to offer amendments was far too risky, so they deliberately chose to ignore the law. Senate Democrats finally passed a budget last year (coincidentally, a non-election year), which ultimately led to December's uninspiring bipartisan spending deal. Like the Budget Control Act before it, the newly-forged compromise does not constitute an actual budget, dealing instead in top line figures. Democrats have argued in the past that these frameworks render genuine, detailed budgeting unnecessary; they'll likely advance the same argument again ahead of the midterms. Not to fear, though -- Americans can rest assured that the president will at least meet a different critical looming deadline, so there's that. I'll leave you with a delicious little morsel the NRCC mined, in which the president shared a pearl of wisdom with the public this last November:
Indeed they do. And for the fifth time in his presidency, Barack Obama has exposed himself as a chief executive who doesn't respect the process or his duties enough to even produce an on-time budget. Priorities:
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