Washington -- In another sign of budget deadlock, the House Wednesday passed a bill that requires the president to either produce a spending plan that balances the budget within 10 years, or provide a supplemental plan that designates the fiscal year when spending will equal revenues. Republicans said the bill, which passed on a mostly party line vote of...
Washington -- In another sign of budget deadlock, the House Wednesday passed a bill that requires the president to either produce a spending plan that balances the budget within 10 years, or provide a supplemental plan that designates the fiscal year when spending will equal revenues.
Rep. Steve Scalise gets an amendment added to bill requiring the president to submit a time frame for achieving a balanced budget.
Republicans said the bill, which passed on a mostly party line vote of 253-167, is designed to pressure the White House to deal with the nation's deficit problems. Democrats called it another "One House Wonder" that will die in the Senate and is more about political posturing than budgetary solutions.
It's called The Require a Plan Act.
"The Require a PLAN Act is another common sense step towards getting Washington on the path to a balanced budget and giving American families the certainty and transparency that they deserve," said Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson. "Washington has a serious spending problem, and in order to get our economy back on track the White House and Senate need to finally start doing their jobs."
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said that the House bill doesn't do the job, given that the United States in less than a month faces automatic cuts in defense and domestic spending he says can be avoided with a Democratic plan that combines spending cuts with higher taxes on wealthy Americans.
"This is a game. This is a sham. This is a shame," Hoyer said. "What the American people want is honest legislation to address the challenges that confront us."
The bill includes two amendments offered by Scalise and Rep. John Fleming, R-Minden. The Scalise amendment would require any budget submitted by the president to include detailed information about historic and projected government spending on welfare and other entitlement programs.
The Fleming amendment would require budgets to detail any and all duplicate taxpayer supported programs.
The bill received yes votes from all five Louisiana House Republicans, Scalise, Fleming and Reps. Bill Cassidy of Baton Rouge; Charles Boustany of Lafayette and Rodney Alexander of Quitman. Rep. Cedric Richmond of New Orleans, the delegation's only Democrat, voted no.
During the debate, Republicans pointed out, multiple times, that President Barack Obama is late with his budget proposal. Democrats said Republicans are doing nothing to avoid sequestration - the automatic cuts in defense and domestic programs - when they have offered a combination of spending and revenue increases for wealthy Americans to insure that deep across the board cuts don't occur on March 1 that, in their view, risks sending the United States back into recession.