Should-Read: Stan Collender: This Is The Real Reason The GOP Doesn’t Want To Do A Budget This Year: “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was the first high-level Republican to say Congress might not even consider let alone adopt a budget resolution this year…

…Then, at the GOP retreat last week, in what was close to his first official act as the new chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR), let it be known that he and his committee had much better things to do than a 2019 budget resolution.

Not doing a budget resolution means there can’t be reconciliation, and without reconciliation the biggest parts of the GOP’s legislative agenda will be virtually impossible to enact…. The GOP can’t be making the decision not to do a budget—basically the equivalent of admitting that Congress and the White House aren’t going to accomplish much of anything significant this year—without a great deal of thought. So why isn’t the GOP going to do a budget? Because the vote on the 2019 budget — the last one Congress will consider before the 2018 midterm elections — will reveal that all the Republican promises on the deficit and debt, including its blind belief on dynamic scoring, were completely bogus…. no budget resolution will mean no hearings in the budget committees, no floor debate, much less media attention and, most importantly, no votes. That makes it a great..and maybe the best…way for congressional Republicans to avoid talking about or taking responsibility for the spiking deficit and debt they said wouldn’t occur.

February 5, 2018

AUTHORS:

Brad DeLong
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