Freshman House Dems push their leaders to approve budget resolution

Freshman House Democrats are pressing leaders to do a budget
resolution this year even as senior Democrats lay the groundwork to skip it.

Rep. Scott Murphy (D-N.Y.) and other first-term members,
uneasy with large deficits, want Democratic leaders to put forth a budget
blueprint and call votes on it so lawmakers can show they can deal with red
ink.

{mosads}“The American people deserve a Congress willing to make
difficult and responsible choices to provide for our long-term fiscal
stability,” Murphy wrote in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
“I’m troubled by rumors that the House is considering the possibility of
not submitting a budget this year for the first time in decades.”

Several of these freshmen face tough reelection campaigns this
year and could benefit politically from passing an austere budget. Republican
challengers have made the $13 trillion debt central to their argument against
the Democratic majority.

While senior Democrats in the House and Senate have yet to
rule out a budget resolution, they’ve said they’re considering a deeming
resolution that would set the discretionary spending levels for next year but
wouldn’t include fiscal policy for the years beyond, which is what full-fledged
budget resolutions do.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has said it will
be difficult to pass a budget resolution this year because of a daunting fiscal
picture and because Democrats are in a tough election year.

“How we go forward with meeting our responsibilities
will be, again, in a very responsible – to use that word again – way,”
Pelosi said this week.

She said that any measure Democrats move forward with would
meet Americans’ needs and the Democrats’ goal of halving the deficit in five
years.

This year’s deficit is projected by the Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) to hit $1.5 trillion.

House leaders have held talks with fiscally conservative
Blue Dog Democrats about their plan to cut non-security discretionary spending
by 2 percent in each of the next three years and freeze it for the following
two years. President Barack Obama’s plan had proposed a three-year freeze on
that spending, but it would still lead to deficits that would average nearly $1
trillion and remain on an unsustainable pace for the next decade, according to
the CBO.

Murphy’s letter, delivered Friday to Pelosi, was also signed
by freshman Democratic Reps. Mike Quigley (Ill.), Larry Kissell (N.C.), Steve
Driehaus (Ohio) and Jim Himes (Conn.).

“We write to you today to express our support for
consideration and passage of a budget resolution for FY2011 that reduces our
actual spending,” the members wrote. “We accept passing a budget as
part of the responsibility of governing we accepted when first elected in
2008.”

In a separate statement, first-term Democrat Rep. Ann
Kirkpatrick (Ariz.) said both parties have been irresponsible over the past
decade when it has come to the country’s finances.

“The budget is our opportunity to get spending under
control, and it is extremely disappointing that we’re not getting job
done,” Kirkpatrick said.

The intra-party friction over the budget comes at the same
time centrist members raised qualms with the cost of a $190 billion bill that
extends the Medicare doctor payment rate, jobless benefits and tax provisions
and provides tax incentives and funding for new jobs.

The vote on the bill was pushed back from last Friday to
next week because of Blue Dogs’ concerns.

Republicans have pointed out that a failure by House
Democrats to bring up a budget would be unprecedented. Since the budget rules
were put in place in 1974, the House has passed at least its version of the
budget plan. Congress failed to pass a final resolution, one that passed both
chambers, in 1998, 2002, 2004 and 2006, all years in which the GOP controlled
at least one chamber of Congress.

House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) office noted
that Democrats have blasted Republicans before for not passing a budget plan.

“Out-of-touch Washington Democrats can’t hide from their
record,” said Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman. “A letter to the
Speaker won’t get them off the hook for their budget-busting, job-killing votes.
Majority Leader Hoyer called passing a budget ‘the most basic responsibility of
governing,’ and they are failing.”