House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that Congress does not need an official federal budget because it can just adopt appropriations bills and authorization policies as needed to keep operating.
Hoyer said: “What does the budget do? The budget does one thing and really only one thing: It sets the parameters of spending and discretionary caps. Other than that, the Appropriations committee are not bound by the Budget committee’s priorities.”
He continued: “The fact is, you don’t need a budget. We can adopt appropriations bills. We can adopt authorization policies without a budget. We already have an agreed-upon cap on spending.”
The House Republicans passed a budget for fiscal year 2012 back in April 2011 – not one House Democrat supported the bill, and only four House Republicans voted against it. The budget bill went nowhere in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
The last time the Senate passed a budget was on Apr. 29, 2009.
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