By Renee Parsons<\/p>\n
As budget chaos reigns supreme, a multitude of brain-dead partisan Americans remain in an \u2018ignorance is bliss\u2019 state of awareness as mockingbird media dumbs down the current Congressional struggle to rescue a dangerously broken fiscal system. Some of those partisans are elected Members of Congress; especially of the RINO class.<\/p>\n
Speaker Kevin McCarthy has revealed a stunning lack of strategic leadership with a reckless \u2018go home\u2019 order to House Republicans over the weekend rather than a \u201cStay and persevere until the work is done\u201d order as the September 30th<\/sup>end-of-the-fiscal- year deadline approaches.<\/p>\n It is helpful to recall that all \u2018revenue raising originates\u201d in the House of Representatives (Article I, Section 7) as Controller of the Federal purse strings and that the last President to approve a balanced budget was Andrew Jackson (1829-37) who also eliminated the Federal debt.\u00a0 It might be helpful to recall that a balanced budget is about taking in more revenue than is spent; such as today\u2019s expected 2024 revenue of $5 Trillion that will be offset by $7 Trillion in expenses. \u00a0How does that make any sense to anyone seriously operating a business or one\u2019s own personal finances on that philosophy?<\/p>\n Even as millions of Americans have no formal Wharton School training, it is amazingly straightforward to understand that Biden Administration\u2019s proposal of an explosive $7 trillion budget<\/a> imperils fiscal sanity, even with a meager 8% overall cut, leaving a deficit at $1.4 Trillion; thereby creating a decade worth of deficits<\/a> at approximately $20 Trillion.<\/p>\n As if that was not enough fiscal insanity, with a current debt of $33 Trillion at a 5% interest rate, interest payments on the debt are calculated at $1.65 Trillion annually.\u00a0 Adding the annual Trillion dollar deficits to the annual interest payment creates a gargantuan stratospheric number beyond anthropologic understanding.<\/p>\n With an obvious shortage of bean counters at the White House and in Congress, any President who would offer a budget so far outside the realm of ever being balanced or why Congress has allowed a grossly inflated deficit to accrue for decades is inexplicable \u2013 all parties contributing to this mess need to clean out their desks and go home and allow those with a whit of common sense to take charge \u2013 after all, that is what elections are about.<\/p>\n The September 30th<\/sup> deadline has never been a secret, although since 1979, the President\u2019s budget proposal has been manipulated by Congressional leadership as the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders and the House Speaker engage in their own closed door alliance creating a bloated \u2018omnibus\u2019 package for every fiscal year.\u00a0\u00a0 An omnibus generally consists of several thousand pages presented at the last minute just before the December holidays guaranteeing that no Member of Congress has an opportunity to thoroughly read, understand its contents or offer amendments. \u00a0\u00a0Therefore, Members of the House especially are deprived of fulfilling and conducting their constitutional responsibility.<\/p>\n An Omnibus historically would feature payback to the donor class include funding for twelve federal departments, $858 boondoggle for the military industrial complex and the latest frivolous \u2018woke\u2019 fads or in vogue trends, otherwise known as pork barrel and bells-and-whistles as the country is driven deeper into a ditch every year.<\/p>\n Today the unelected administrative staff has enormous influence over its own budget, as the Omnibus has allowed massive bloated budgets to go through the process without any serious Congressional oversight or scrutiny until after the fact.<\/p>\n In other words, 1979 may have been the last time when Congress actually performed its job, conducted a line by line review for an entire Federal department including late night harangues on the House floor and debates on the nuance in every department, sorting the wheat from the chaff as it approved a legitimate budget and took responsibility for the debt and how taxpayer funds were being allocated.<\/p>\n Speaker McCarthy\u2019s capitulation in May accepting the Biden Administration\u2019s debt ceiling proposal included a pledge to the Republican caucus that an agreed-upon package of twelve separate single-subject appropriation bills would be ready to roll when Congress returned from its extended six week holiday (and we all know how badly they needed a six week paid vacation.)\u00a0 Rather than limit that six weeks hiatus to four weeks, those appropriation bills were not prepared as promised. \u00a0Leaving the House in its current crisis, attempting to, at the last minute, finagle a process that would achieve significant budget cuts as anticipated and avoid a government shut-down.<\/p>\n As Freedom Caucus unity fragmented, the Republican caucus will wisely follow the Gaetz \u00a0plan to bring twelve appropriation packages to the House Floor to be voted on individually with Congressional scrutiny and a bona fide legislative process in order to meet the September 30th<\/sup> date or thereabouts. \u00a0It may mean late night hours and will take discipline to focus on the details of each of those twelve packages.\u00a0 The American people will be watching every roll call vote.<\/p>\n As an added kerfuffle,\u00a0 the Pentagon announcement that its military efforts in Ukraine would be a exempt<\/a> from a House potential shutdown raises the question who exactly is running the government as funding for the obscene Ukraine war with no valid national security interest continues to be a flashpoint.<\/p>\n On the Senate side, Sen. Ron Johnson (Wisc.) blocked a rule<\/a> in objection to a Senate version of a government \u2018minibus\u2019 spending package.\u00a0 In a somewhat miraculous outcome, the Republican caucus united to defeat the \u2018minibus\u2019 which included five appropriations rather than the usual twelve spending package, yet with the same concern.\u00a0 By combining twelve federal department budgets into one Omnibus package, elected Members had little to no opportunity review its contents or offer amendments when necessary.<\/p>\n \u00a0In a rare display of RINO and Republican caucus unity, with a sixty vote threshold required, the final 49-48<\/a> vote denied approval of the \u2018minibus\u2019 with only Sen. Lisa Murkowski Not Voting.<\/p>\n As the House continues its deliberations, frail Republican leader McConnell commented that a shutdown \u201calways been a loser for Republicans, politically<\/i>\u201d<\/a> which is not accurate. \u00a0After the last shutdown in 2013, Republicans picked up nine new Senate seats<\/a> to take control of the Senate 54-44 including McConnell\u2019s election.<\/p>\n\n\n
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