A Faux Budget From The United States Congress
Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 05:55PM 
Last week, Gallup's 2010 Confidence in Institutions poll found that Congress ranked dead last out of the 16 institutions rated this year.
Just eleven percent of Americans say they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress, down from 17% in 2009 and a percentage point lower than the previous low for Congress recorded in 2008.
Congress has earned its historic low in popular opinion from passing major legislation without reading it, dubious ethics, creating record high deficits from reckless spending and by pretending to pass a 2010 budget that was never considered or even proposed.
The 2010 faux budget was part of a procedural vote on the emergency war supplemental bill, House Democrats attached a document that "deemed as passed" a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget. The execution of the "deeming" document allows Democrats and Congress to start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the pesky constraints of a real budget.
The procedural vote passed 215-210 on July 2, 2010 with no Republicans voting in favor and 38 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote against deeming the faux budget resolution passed.
Since the creation of the Congressional budget process -- never has the House failed to pass a budget, failed to propose a budget then deemed the non-existent budget as passed as a means to avoid a direct, recorded vote on a budget, but still allow Congress to spend taxpayer money.
The budget process used by Congress today was set forth in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. Both the Senate and the House are supposed to pass resolutions in the spring that outline the framework for future bills that address spending, taxation and other fiscal policy items.
This budget represents a plan for allocating revenues and expenditures for the coming fiscal year, as well as for the next four fiscal years in more general terms. Each chamber is supposed to pass a version of the resolution, and if the two versions differ, then the chambers jointly hammer out a compromise and pass it.
However, this is an election year and the budget deficit and spending by the solons is out of control. Congressional Members (especially Democrats) fear for their re-election but will continue to spend taxpayer money without a budget and without constraint.
It seems that an 11% Congressional approval rating is still much too high.
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