Freshman U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is among those members of Congress who are sick of the series of continuing resolutions put forward as alternatives to a new, more scaled-back federal budget. As Human Events reports:
One Republican who had the courage to lay off the sauce this time was Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. “Today’s vote, first of all, should remind us of how we got here. Why are we funding government in two or three week increments?” he asked in a press release, after voting against the latest CR. “It’s because Democrats, when they ran the House, the Senate and the White House, didn’t pass a budget… But more importantly, this is a terrible way to run government. We are facing some serious issues in America today, particularly the fact that we are borrowing $4 billion a day to keep the lights on and particularly the fact that we owe $14 trillion and growing. It’s time to face those issues in a serious way. The time for waiting is over. The time for games has passed.”
Rubio hits upon one of the most troubling aspects of this absurd budgeting process. It is a terrible way to run government. In fact, it’s actually a kind of fraud. The government is supposed to provide order and structure. It is the agency of law in a just and reasoned society. The shameful failure of the Pelosi Congress to produce a budget is an example of lawlessness – a failure of fiscal duty no different from various accounting frauds that would put corporate CEOs behind bars.
A budget is the government’s way of explaining to its masters in the electorate how it will perform the duties they have assigned to it, using the resources they have seen fit to provide. The current process of limitless deficits and make-it-up-as-we-go spending resolutions makes an utter mockery of this republican ideal. Instead, Congress says it will do whatever it pleases, grab as much cash as it thinks it can extract from us, and let the unpaid bills pile up in vaults around the world.