WASHINGTON — A couple of weeks ago I
elaborated on how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had at the
time failed for three straight years to write up a budget in the
Senate, thereby breaking the law three — now four — years
running. I said that he should write up a budget in part to inform
the citizenry how their tax dollars were being spent. How much was
going to the Pentagon and our nation’s security? How much was going
into green fantasies like Solyndra and payoffs to the Democratic
Party’s friends. That would be friendly fascism, the left’s
post-liberalism evolutionary stage. Some call it Obamaism.
Where is the accountability? Failing to write up a budget is a
dereliction of duty. At the time, I speculated ever so gently about
what sort of crime Harry was committing. Everyone agrees that not
writing up a budget is crime. Is it a felony or a mere misdemeanor?
I innocently joked that senators from Nevada are not known for
committing mere misdemeanors. Now having spent two weeks studying
Harry’s case and counseling with members of Congress — past and
present — I think I am closer to excogitating a penalty for the
wretched Harry.
The law we are referring to is the 1974 Congressional Budget and
Impoundment Control Act, which was passed to override President
Richard Nixon’s veto of those expenditures in the federal budget of
which he did not approve. He called it impoundment. His high-minded
opponents responded that it was an extravagant extension of what
was then called the “Imperial Presidency.” Today I suppose we call
it Obamacare or Rule by Executive Order. To the Democrats it is
very progressive.
At any rate, the 1974 law was written in a more innocent era. It
was the time of Watergate and impeachment. In those more easygoing
days members of Congress could not imagine themselves coldly and
with malice aforethought breaking the law. Thus they would not
bring embarrassment to Congress by even suggesting penalties.
Today, we live in a more ruthless era. There are sitting in the
Senate people who would deny the citizenry the simple illuminating
document of a federal budget.
I am indebted to Kimberly Strassel, the insightful Washington
columnist for the Wall Street Journal, for her learned
explication of Harry’s obduracy. According to her, he is failing to
submit a budget because, in keeping with the perverse ways of the
capital, his failure keeps the focus of the press and the
politicians on the Republican House of Representatives. The press
and the partisan pols focus on what the House accomplishes rather
than focusing on the Senate’s derelictions. Thus official
Washington is hysterical over the House’s threat to go over the
“fiscal cliff” or its refusal to raise the debt ceiling, rather
than the Senate’s repeated violations of the 1974 Budget and
Impoundment Control Act. Furthermore, by refusing to write up a
budget Harry’s Senate continues to keep his Democratic
members’ true identities hidden from the voters back
home. Are they for lavish spending and draconian tax increases? Are
they for gun control? Do they want Big Bird reading the evening
news on public television? Who knows? They have not voted on a
budget. How do the Democratic senators spend their time? No one in
Washington seems to care.
Now the industrious Republican members of the House of
Representatives have come up with yet another plan for dealing with
our fiscal mess and for getting the Democrats in the Senate on
record with a budget. The House is voting for a suspension of the
debt ceiling at least until May 19. However, the House is also
insisting that both chambers of Congress write up a budget by April
15. If one or the other chambers does not submit a budget, its
members’ pay will be held up until the end of the Congressional
session, January 2015. The Senate’s millionaires and billionaires
will not mind, or will they? It can be very expensive in Washington
even living on a millionaire’s income. One of the added benefits of
the Republicans’ strategy is to demonstrate to the popolo
minuto how very well off the Senate Democrats are.
In the meantime, I have prevailed upon former House member Bob
Barr to investigate how we can put teeth into that 1974 law that
Harry has broken (four times!). We may have to replace the Budget
and Impoundment Control Act with a new statute, but Harry we are
serious. I will not allow Barr to include hard labor among the new
penalties, but my compassion for Harry can only go so
far.
