Politico: The GOP's Budget Fail

Despite years of talking about how critical it is to pass a budget – and ceaseless criticism of the Senate when they failed to pass one – Speaker Ryan and House Republicans have all but given up on passing a budget for Fiscal Year 2017.  Politico highlights the hypocrisy this morning: 

“Not long ago, Congressional Republicans said authoring and passing a budget were the basics of governing. They flew into open rage when Harry Reid's Senate Democrats took a pass on advancing a fiscal blueprint, and threatened to withhold lawmakers’ pay as a punishment. And they convinced voters to return them to power because they would make Capitol Hill work again. But here we are, on April 13, with Republicans holding both chambers of Congress, and there isn't a budget in sight.”

“In fact, they won't just miss the mid-April deadline by a day or two. There's a better-than-even chance that the House and Senate will never pass a budget together, and there’s an even better chance that neither chamber will pass a budget before the election.”

“Republicans have undermined one of their core arguments for governing. They have not been able to normalize legislating and hopes for regular order have been dashed. And that Congress can completely forgo a budget without consequence shows that the non-binding process means little, and proves to be just an annoyance for the party in power.”

We wish them luck explaining their budget fail to constituents back home.