Guess I need to pay my taxes again this year.....
Senate passes first budget in four years
The US Senate passed a budget for the first time in four years on Saturday after an early morning vote that saw victory for the Democrats by the narrowest possible margin. The move matches the passing of a vastly different budget, drawn up by the fiscal conservative Paul Ryan, in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Now the sides must try to thrash out the differences between the two proposals in negotiations in April that appear far from guaranteed to succeed.
The budget that the Senate endorsed only just succeeded in getting passed. A final vote of 50 votes to 49 came in just after 5am. A group of conservative Democrats – Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mark Pryor of Arkansas – joined the entire Republican caucus in voting against it. All four dissenting Democrats face tough re-election battles next year.
The Senate had not passed a budget resolution since 2009 because of fiscal policy disputes with Republicans that forced Congress to turn to numerous stop-gap spending measures, in order to avoid government shutdowns. Neither of the new budgets would be passed by the opposing chamber and each gives a very different ideological platform from which to put forward its vision of the future of government in America.
The Democrats' plan aims to reduce deficits by $1.85tn over 10 years, through an equal mix of tax increases and spending cuts. It includes unspecified tax rises worth about $975bn. The Republican plan seeks $4.6tnin savings over the same period, without raising new taxes. It aims to reach a small surplus by 2023 through deep cuts to healthcare and social programs that aid the poor.
The Senate Budget Committee chairman, Patty Murray, said she intended to try to unite the two budgets but acknowledged the serious problems that lie ahead. "While it is clear that the policies, values, and priorities of the Senate budget are very different than those articulated in the House budget, I know the American people are expecting us to work together to end the gridlock and find common ground, and I plan to continue doing exactly that," she said.
The Senate's top Republican, Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell, immediately hit back. "This budget is a rehash of the extreme policies that continue to hobble the economy and crush the middle class," he said in a statement, noting that the budget would not become law.
President Barack Obama intends to release his own budget vision for 2014 next month, in a move that may go some way to uniting the two proposals so far. In a statement on Saturday, the White House said it was "encouraging that both the Senate and House have made progress by passing budgets through regular order".
But in an indication of entrenched party positions, the statement noted: "The House Republican budget refuses to ask for a single dime of deficit reduction from closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and the well-connected but instead makes deep cuts to education and manufacturing while asking seniors and the middle class to pay more. That is not an approach we support and it is not and approach the majority of the American people support."
The looming debates over the budget come as America faces yet another fierce battle over raising its debt ceiling. The measure used to be routine, allowing the US access to international capital markets in order to fund itself. But it has recently become a focus of intense political horse-trading as Republicans use the threat of a no vote to extract concessions on cutting government spending. Any failure to raise the debt ceiling could result in a US default on its financial obligations – potentially triggering a major global fiscal crisis.
