Democrats owe Americans an honest budget

By Tom Quiner

Is America heading in the right direction or the wrong direction?

According to poll results at www.RealClearPolitics.com, 61.7 percent of Americans say we’re heading in the wrong direction.  One year ago, the number was 48 percent.

Why is dissatisfaction growing?

Certainly some of the biggest concerns are runaway deficits and the unprecedented expansion of the federal government under President Obama and a Democratic Congress.

Moderate Americans are worried:  how can we possibly afford all the new spending and all of the new unionized government employees the President has added to the government payroll?

What could the President and Congress do to instill some confidence with the American people?  They could submit a balanced budget to the American people.

They could submit a budget that shows new fiscal restraint in government spending.

They could submit a budget that shows Americans we’re on a path back to solvency.

The President and Congress won’t do it.  Even more, they refuse to even submit a budget at all.

Let me put it in perspective.  The Democrats have escalated government spending way beyond the Bush years, way beyond anything America has ever seen.  The only question is whether Obama deficits will triple or quadruple Bush’s deficits from 2008 (although it is only fair to mention that Democrats also controlled Congressional purse strings since 2006).

Now Democrats are totally in charge.  What have they done?  They broke the bank and refuse to even offer up a budget of any sort for 2011.

We’re witnessing a repugnant act of political cowardice.  House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer excuses their refusal to craft a budget on the grounds that it isn’t possible without the input of a “deficit commission” assembled by the President that won’t offer budget suggestions until, you guessed it, after the midterm elections in November.

My response is simple:  Congress spends the money; they’re ones who got us into this mess with assistance from the President; they owe it to the voters to present a budget now as they have historically done.

Grover Norquist, who heads Americans for Tax Reform, says, “It makes it appear that the whole point of the deficit commission from day one was to hide from what Congress is really doing and let Congressman run in the November election claiming to be for some imaginary budget restraint that they’re not actually ready to vote for.”

In other words, the whole thing is a con, once again at taxpayer expense.

Senator Judd Gregg, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, put it this way:  “The majority simply doesn’t want to highlight to the American people how much unpaid-for spending is planned for the next ten years, and how staggering our deficits will be as a result.”

Democrats have controlled government purse strings for three and a half years.  They owe the American people an honest budget for next year.  They need to show us how they plan to undo the structural damage they have done to our nation’s finances.

Their refusal to do so explains why 61.7 percent of Americans believe we’re headed in the wrong direction.

Their refusal explains why a staggering 71 percent of Americans (according to RealClearPolitics.com) disapprove of the job Congress is doing.