As of Monday, the federal government has operated without a formal budget for three and a half years.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “last adopted a budget on April 29th, 2009,” according to a Monday press release from the Senate Budget Committee’s Republican staff.
“A budget requires only 51 votes to pass and yet the Majority has refused to even meet its legal obligation to draft one,” said the release.
The debt has risen from $11.2 trillion to $16.2 trillion in the last three and a half years, according to their analysis.
A Wall Street Journal editorial published on October 28 called, “Harry Reid’s Graveyard,” targets the Senate Majority Leader for inaction since 2010.
“The Senate failed to pass any budget in 2012. Or 2011. Or 2010. The Senate hasn’t passed a budget in more than 1,200 days,” the editorial says.
“Sorry, Harry, you can’t blame that on a Republican filibuster, because it takes only 51 votes to pass a Senate budget resolution,” it continued.
After the Republican-controlled House passed Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget, House Speaker John Boehner repeatedly challenged Reid to follow suit.
“You know, it was Steny Hoyer a couple of years ago who said the most important part of governing is doing a budget. Senate Democrats have not done a budget for three and a half years,” Boehner said on September 21 before Congress went out of session.
“How about the 40 jobs bills that are sitting in the United States Senate? The House is the only body to have passed a bill to stop all of the coming tax hikes.”
Boehner argued that leadership in the Senate is nonexistent.
“The House is the only body that’s passed a bill to stop the sequester. We have done our work but here, Senate Democrats and the president — where is their responsibility? Where is their leadership? It just doesn’t exist,” he said.