Well, that was fast.
Both the House and the Senate have passed versions of President Obama’s $ 3.6 trillion budget:
WASHINGTON — The House and Senate approved budgets of about $3.5 trillion for the government on Thursday with no Republican support, a sign of deep partisan tensions likely to color Congressional efforts to enact major policy initiatives sought by President Obama.
On the heels of House approval of its spending plan for 2010, the Senate voted 55 to 43 shortly before midnight to adopt a similar budget after a day spent laboring over politically tinged amendments that did little to change a fiscal blueprint generally in keeping with Mr. Obama’s ambitious agenda.
Democrats said the two budgets, which will have to be reconciled after a two-week Congressional recess, cleared the way for health care, energy and education overhauls pushed by the new president. The Democrats said the budgets reversed what they portrayed as the failed economic approach of the Bush administration and Republican-led Congresses.
“This responsible budget will start cleaning up the mistakes of the past and make critical investments in our future,” Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada and the majority leader, said.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said Democrats would like to find consensus with Republicans, but not at the expense of the infusion of federal money that the majority calls crucial in a time of economic distress.
“The American people want us to find our common ground where we can, but they did not send us here to split the difference,” Ms. Pelosi said. “They want real change, and we have come here to make a difference.”
House Republicans, who offered budget alternatives featuring a domestic spending freeze and broad tax cuts, accused Democrats of encouraging runaway spending that would bloat the government, worsen the economy and pile government debt on future generations.
“Let’s not do this to our kids,” said Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the No.3 Republican in the House. “Let’s not borrow from the next generation of Americans.”
Well, considering that we’ve been doing just that for decades, and that your party perfected it during the previous Administration, your words are sort of ringing hollow Congressman.
Your last lineis disengenuous at best ( and I think you must know it). The bush admin made effors to shrink their budget, not grow it, as evidenced by their shrinking deficit in the years leading up to the sept 2008 banking collapse. You could definitely make the argument that that you don’t like where the money was spent (Iraq and afganistan), but to say they perfected the art of borrowing from future generations, while this new administration is set to triple the national debt in the nest 10 years, is asstounding. In the same breath that liberals criticize the bush administration leaving a 4.5 billion deficit to Obama, they praise obama for his plan to rack up a 1.85 trillion deficit just the next year. Thats 4 times the deficit that bush racked up in his worst year, and it’s Obama’s 1st? How does that bode for the future? And if you take bush’s average deficit compared to Obama’s projected 8 year deficit, you still get 4 times more spending and for team Obama. You can only defend this stuff and deflect blame to bush for so long before you lose all credibility. Better start preparing.