Debt Ceiling Follow-Up: Sanity Comes to the Senate

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) took the floor of the Senate yesterday to announce his support for a highly sensible proposition: "There will be no 'unanimous consent' to allow votes on any appropriations bill until the Senate has first adopted a reasonable budget -- as the law requires us to do, in any event." Then he was joined by other Republican colleagues, who made the same point again and again: no votes to spend money until we have a framework -- a budget -- in which to put a limit on spending:

This is the way normal households take control of their finances. As one of the speakers stated, the Democratic majority in the Senate has not allowed a vote on a budget for 806 days -- more than two years. Is this any way to run a government? No matter what party one belongs to, one has to ask: who benefits from the lack of a budget?

President Obama refuses to offer a (balanced) budget; Senate Democrats refuse to offer a budget (balanced or otherwise); and that leaves everything to the Republican majority in the House, and the Republican minority in the Senate. Alone, they cannot get any legislation passed; but they can block proposals to spend without any budgetary limits. The media will try to excoriate them for doing so, but the people have to stick to fundamental principles. No spending without a balanced budget! Stop the madness, here and now!

Anyone who cannot support such a basic rule for government spending does not have America's best interests at heart. It is time to call our elected representatives to account for what they are proposing in the midst of this budgetary showdown. Whether Republican or Democrat, if they just want to keep spending without any controls or limits, they need to be blocked now, and voted out in November 2012.