Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia, the president of the freshman House Republican class, is pressing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats to pass a budget, arguing that they “couldn’t run a hot dog stand this way.”
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“I think they’re just out of touch with America, quite honestly,” Scott told The Daily Caller in an interview at the Capitol on Tuesday.
“Look, you couldn’t run a hot dog stand this way, and certainly trying to operate the country this way is costing the taxpayers a lot of money and costing Americans a lot of jobs.”
Scott said that Reid is protecting the Senate Democrats who face re-election in 2012.
“I do believe that they are trying to protect the 23 Senators over there from having to cast any tough votes, I sure do,” said Scott, who highlighted on Tuesday that 888 days had gone by without a budget from the Senate. [RELATED: GOP freshman: Senate Dems should ‘get off their rear ends,’ pass a budget]
TheDC asked the third-ranking Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer why his party had not passed a budget.
“Well, we’re way beyond that,” Schumer told TheDC on Wednesday in the halls of Congress. “We’re trying to fund it to prevent them [House Republicans] from shutting down the government.”
House Republicans passed a budget in April but the Senate did not produce its version before the new fiscal year that began October 1. Instead, Congress passed a continuing resolution, which President Barack Obama has signed into law to keep the government funded through November 18.