It was going to be hard to justify the decade of near-trillion dollar deficits, so the Democrats are now planning on simply skipping the budget resolution. Because of irreconcilable differences between Blue Dogs who favor deficit reduction and liberals who want to pass further stimulus measures, House Democrats won’t pass a budget this year, as Majority Leader Steny Hoyer acknowledged yesterday. 

Needless to say, Hoyer had some choice words for the House Republicans when they were struggling to pass a budget resolution in 2006: 

House Republicans are now on the cusp of failing to meet the most basic responsibility of governing – enacting a budget. The truth is, the American people are not the only ones who are rejecting the Republican Party’s policies – so are some Republicans. After years of helping their party and president dig a massive fiscal hole, some Republicans are now running scared that their misguided policies will finally catch up to them at the ballot box this November.

And as Debra Saunders notes, current Budget Committee chairman John Spratt was singing a similar tune: 

“If you can’t budget, you can’t govern,” Rep. John Spratt Jr., D-S.C., proclaimed in 2006 when the House GOP leadership chose to dispense with passing a budget resolution.

Now that the Dems run the House, Spratt is chairman of its Budget Committee and the April 15 deadline for passing a budget resolution is a niggling detail, easily ignored.

It’s really bad news that the Democrats can’t find a way to paint a rosy picture of the budget even when the alternative is no budget at all.