White House Misleads Country On Budget Law

CROWLEY: “I want to read for our viewers something that Sen. Harry Reid, the Democrat Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate, who said, ‘We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year. It’s done, we don’t need to do it.’”
LEW: “He’s not saying that they shouldn’t pass a budget. But we also need to be honest. You can’t pass a budget in the Senate of the United States without 60 votes and you can't get 60 votes without bipartisan support. So unless… unless Republicans are willing to work with Democrats in the Senate, Harry Reid is not going to be able to get a budget passed.”NOTE: Under the law, a budget requires only 51 votes to pass the Senate — not 60. Jack Lew, the president’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget (the top budget post in the administration) and current Chief of Staff, should be more familiar than most with this law. But today on CNN's “State of the Union,” Lew incredibly asserted that a budget requires 60 votes to pass. (Previously, another senior Senate Democrat made the same claim.)

The controversy over Senate Democrats’ failure to budget escalated recently when Majority Leader Reid declared that Senate Democrats “do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year.” This would mark the third consecutive year — a record—that the Democrat Senate failed to offer a budget plan to the American people. Last year, they didn't even draft one for presentation in committee — keeping it a closely guarded secret, never shared with the public.

Ben Bernanke was asked about the uncertainty connected with the lack of a budget plan at a Budget Committee hearing this month and replied in part “...Is uncertainty negative on growth? I think it is.”

Subsequently, ABC's Jake Tapper asked White House spokesman Jay Carney about the situation at the daily press briefing. An excerpt from that exchange:

TAPPER: “The White House has no opinion about whether or not the Senate should pass a budget? The president is going to introduce one, the Fed chair says not having one is bad for growth, but the White House has no opinion?”

CARNEY: “I have no opinion, the White House has no opinion...”

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the US Senate Budget Committee described the shirking of responsibility from the Senate’s Democrat leaders: “By refusing to lay out a budget plan for public examination the Democrat Senators have forfeited the high privilege to lead this chamber.”

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