Why No Budget?

Today, the Senate voted down 5 budgets.  President Obama's proposed budget went down to a 0-99 defeat.  The other four budgets, proposed by various Republican senators, were also defeated but none so badly as this.  Only Rand Paul's budget came close to matching Obama's crushing defeat though his got 16 votes in favor.

The Constitution requires Congress to pass a budget.  The House passed a budget last year and passed one this year.  The Senate has gone more than 1000 days without passing a budget.  The House is controlled by Republicans and the Senate by Democrats.  Of note, it only takes 51 votes to pass a budget, so the Democrats could pass a budget without a single Republican vote.  Moreover, as it is a budget, it is not subject to filibuster.  Reconciliation is how the Bush Tax Cuts were passed even though the Republicans didn't have a supermajority.

One wonders why the Democrats have failed to pass a budget.  The Republicans can't stop them from passing a budget.  Once a budget is passed, the House and Senate would reconcile their differing budgets through horse trading, which is how it has happened for more than 2 centuries.  Why not now?  We've had divided government before.  This should be nothing new.  And yet we are moving into 3 years without a budget.  There must be a reason.

Failure to pass a budget means that the only options on the table are to continue current spending levels via a continuing resolution or a government shutdown.  Republicans were burned badly the last time they tried the government shutdown (1995) and won't dare to do it again.  That leaves the continuing resolution.  What budget is thus extended?  The 2009 budget, which dramatically expanded government spending through the stimulus package.  Thus we have our answer.

If the Senate passes a budget and then goes into conference committee with the House, it is a certainty that budget priorities will change.  The Democrats will not get a budget as much to their liking as the 2009 budget that was passed by a Democratic House, Senate, and President.  Better to forever extend a budget they like than to pass a new budget that they dislike.  All the complaints that the Republicans are intransigent is nonsense but it plays well in the media.