Before President Barack Obama issued his eighth and final budget proposal, both the House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) said they are prepared to turn it down.
They announced last week in a joint statement the committees will not even give the budget director a hearing to review the proposal.
"Nothing in the president's prior budgets — none of which have ever balanced — has shown that the Obama Administration has any real interest in actually solving our fiscal challenges or saving critical programs like Medicare and Social Security from insolvency," Chairman Price said in the announcement. "Rather than spend time on a proposal that, if anything like this Administration's previous budgets, will double down on the same failed policies that have led to the worst economic recovery in modern times, Congress should continue our work on building a budget that balances and that will foster a healthy economy."
This is a first in the 41-year-old modern budget process, according to a report in The New York Times. Democrats on the House Budget Committee called the move disrespectful, according to the report.
"I believe that permitting the administration the courtesy of explaining its intent and what it thinks of the policy should have been maintained," Douglas Holtz-Eakin, PhD, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and a Republican economic adviser, told The New York Times. Dr. Holtz-Eakin also said the process would give Republicans an opportunity to express disagreement, according to the report.
The New York Times notes the annual deficit of more than $1 trillion has been trimmed three-quarters since President Obama took office in 2009 and unemployment has dropped from 10 percent to 4.9 percent.
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