IMPORTANT MESSAGE: Democrats John Spratt & Rob Miller give up on the Federal Budget this year
(COLUMBIA, SC – July 6, 2010) The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives just set a new record – and avoided acting responsibly with your tax dollars, too. It didn’t even go through the pretense of bothering to write a Federal Budget for FY 2011. Instead, the Democrat majority last week passed something called a “budget enforcement resolution.” It is a stunning break from recent history, because the House has passed a budget resolution every year since the modern budget process was created back in 1974. But not this time!
If you don’t know what a “budget enforcement resolution” is, you’re in good company. The specifics are just as fuzzy as the math House Democrats based it on. For the first time since Nixon was president, the “budget enforcement resolution” does not include revenue and spending projections for the coming five years. Here’s how the Budget Committee chairman, South Carolina’s own John Spratt –the midwife who helped deliver this surrender of legislative fiscal responsibility– explains it: “While this resolution does not project the budget out over five years, it does look to the future by assuring that the House will have an opportunity to vote this year on longer-term budget proposals made by the president’s Fiscal Commission…”
Hold on a minute, Congressman Spratt! You persuaded your fellow Democrat House members last week to duck and cover and avoid passing a Federal Budget… and you are clearly keeping the door open to the very real possibility of voting to raise taxes, if an Obama-appointed commission says you should. But the truly sneaky part of your statement is the phrase “vote this year.” That’s Washington code language meaning “after the midterm elections this November.” (Click here to read more about last week’s vote.)
So not only did the Democrat-led House abdicate its duty by opting to stay in a financial “holding pattern,” they also set the stage to gouge Americans with a bigger tax bill just as soon as the last votes are counted this November.
Rob Miller, the ironically self-tagged “fiscal conservative,” has been a disciple learning at John Spratt’s feet for years. He also accepted thousands of Spratt dollars when he unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2008. Now Miller wants very badly to go to Washington and shed his “fiscal conservative” sheep’s clothing so he can vote with John Spratt, Nancy Pelosi, Heny Stoyer and the gang that foisted the “budget enforcement resolution” scam upon Americans last week. (Miller is also the financial beneficiary of Nancy Pelosi, as well as long list of radical liberals and groups like MoveOn.org.)
Clearly, that’s too great a risk to take in such uncertain financial times.
Now, more than at any time since the Great Depression, we need courageous leaders who are not afraid to do the right thing. Instead, we are straddled with John Spratt and his financial beneficiary Rob Miller.
South Carolinians deserve better.