New year, no federal budget
New York (CNNMoney.com) - On Oct. 1, just three weeks after lawmakers return from their summer break on Tuesday, fiscal year 2011 will begin. But Congress will not have a new budget in place by then. And it may not materialize anytime soon.
It won't be the first time. In fact, tardy federal budgets have been par for the course for most of the past 35 years.
"It's pretty inexcusable even though we excuse it every year. There's no reason on earth why [lawmakers] shouldn't be able to make up their minds before the start of the fiscal year," said Rudolph Penner, a former Congressional Budget Office director who is now public policy scholar at at the Urban Institute.
Without a formal budget, Congress typically ends up passing so-called "continuing resolutions" for a month or two at a time. That essentially prevents the federal government from shutting down while lawmakers finalize how money will be allocated in the fiscal new year.
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Any wonder why the Democratic-controlled Congress has the lowest approval rating in America's history?
I hope they do not include pay raises for Federal government employees. Salaries for Federal employees should be frozen for a few years. Two of my adult children are school teachers and THEY didn't get a raise this year, nor did they get a raise last year..................AND, they spend a lot of their own money for supplies in the classroom.
The Dems have failed at everything......including keeping the government in operation.
If you click on the full story, you will see what is wrong with this country – $1.9 trillion collected and $3.2 trillion spent. I understand that some deficit spending is necessary to get out of an recession, but this is ridiculous. VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT AND ELECT PEOPLE WHO WILL NOT MORTGAGE THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY.
Good way to further fool the taxpayers about the size of of deficit Mr. president if the truth was known your party would lose even more seats. Real change for the better will come in 2012.
Too say we're in a recession or a weak ecomomy, you'll never know it according to the last two weekends. Did anyone notice how full the hotels and the football stadiums were? College and Pro teams. I heard no one yielding out where are the jobs. We are not that bad off!
Thank you Mr. President Obama!
Good idea for liberals this year!
Convenient, the election and all...yep.
The military has been doing an outstanding job... especially the young ones who are in harms way. We need to ensure they are rewarded with a reasonable pay raise this year. The standard 1.9% that the president has been giving doesn't even keep up with inflation... we need to do better by our troops... IMO
The Socialist Party formerly known as Democrats don't want a budget. They want to keep borrowing money from China until they finish ruining this country.
Obama should do like Clinton did and just shut the government down until the moron Republicans quit saying NO!!! Maybe, just maybe they will wake up and smell the coffee.