Senate Democrats on Wednesday officially unveiled a budget resolution for the first time in nearly four years. It presents a stark contrast to the latest offering by House Republicans, which achieves balance within a decade without raising taxes. The Democratic proposal never balances, and calls for a $1 trillion tax increase, at least $100 billion in stimulus spending, and a smattering of nebulous spending cuts, most of which can be chalked up to accounting gimmicks.
Now that Senate Democrats have finally put their plan on paper, it is not hard to understand why they have been so reluctant to do so. For one, it is far easier to demagogue an opponent’s proposal without a serious plan of your own to defend. In almost all respects, the Democratic budget is a political testament to President Obama’sinsistence that “we don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt.”
Democrats, though, don’t seem worried — yet. Senate Budget Committee chairman Patty Murray (D., Wash.) expressed confidence that the American public’s verdict in the 2012 election was a repudiation of the House Republican budget authored by Paul Ryan, and a mandate for the “balanced, responsible approach” Democrats are offering. Budgets, she said Wednesday during a committee hearing, were less about “abstract numbers,” and more about “values” and “priorities.”
Murray’s budget, which is woefully light on specifics, essentially embodies what former Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner told Ryan last year: “We’re not coming before you today to say we have a definitive solution to that long-term problem. What we do know is, we don’t like yours.”
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