From: SenateRepublican_BudgetPressOffice@budget.senate.

gov Subject: ICYMI: Sessions Op-Ed In Politico On Record Of Senate Majority Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 12:00:28 +0000

People can disagree on how to save our nation from a debt crisis. But who can defend the Senate majoritys decision to skirt its most fundamental duties? By refusing to offer a financial plan for three straight years by abnegating this basic obligation in a time of national crisis Senate Democrats have proven themselves unwilling, unable and unworthy to lead.
September 21, 2012

Senate Dems 'unworthy to lead'

By: Sen. Jeff Sessions

The Senate, after returning briefly from a five-week recess, is now due to adjourn in a matter of days and not come back until after the election. During my 16 years in the Senate, I have never seen a majority party so determined to avoid its most basic obligations and protect its members from casting difficult votes. The scale of the Democrats delinquency is unprecedented. For three straight years, Senate Democrats have refused to offer a budget plan for a vote let alone pass one as our nation slides deeper into financial crisis. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) even once said it would be foolish for us to do a budget. Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) described the House budget as draconian before canceling his own legally required budget meeting to mark up a plan. Sen. Patty Murray, in a speech deriding the House budget, declared that a budget is a statement of our values. What then are the values of a majority party that scoffs at the legal requirement to lay out a longterm financial plan? Every member of the Democrat caucus bears responsibility for this brazen act of statutory defiance. The rank-and-file Democratic senators are not standing up to their leader. Reids majority has also refused to pass a single annual spending bill to fund government operations for next year. The only other time this happened in the 145-year history of the appropriations process was when Senate Democrats did it in 2010. Instead, Congress will again have to cram all its spending bills into one mammoth piece of legislation, a continuing resolution. By forcing an entire year of legislative work into one gargantuan bill, the Senate robs the American people of the opportunity to have their voices heard on how their money is being spent. Senate Democrats have also failed to offer any plan to prevent the fiscal cliff the combination of an automatic increase in taxes and steep cuts in defense spending set to occur in January. The majority has stunningly refused to bring the national defense authorization bill up for a vote for the first time in 50 years legislation critical to our military that passed out of committee on a unanimous vote.

In the face of Senate Democrats failure, the Republican House has a very different record. Most significantly, it passed a detailed budget plan that would simplify the Tax Code, reduce spending, reform welfare, put Medicare on stable footing and finally achieve financial discipline in Washington. House Republicans also passed spending bills, the annual defense authorization, a proposal to avoid the fiscal cliff and prevent devastating defense cuts, as well as a long series of jobs bills including measures to dramatically enhance domestic oil production. These are all issues that Reid has blocked from even receiving a vote in the Democratic Senate. This is not to say Senate Democrats havent acted. In fact, when their party controlled both chambers they passed plenty of bills including a near-$800 billion stimulus package and a $2.6 trillion health care law. In the past six years that the Senate has remained under Democratic control, the federal budget has increased from $2.7 trillion to $3.7 trillion a 37 percent jump. What the Senate majority has been unwilling to do going to spectacular lengths to avoid is anything to address our nations dangerously unsustainable debt. That debt hangs over the economy like an ominous cloud, fostering uncertainty and restraining growth. Consider the extent of our financial peril: 40 cents of every dollar spent is now borrowed; our gross debt has grown larger than our entire economy; on a per-person basis our debt is worse than that of bankrupt Greece; within seven years we can expect to be spending more on interest payments to our creditors than on national defense. Through the next 10 years, federal spending is projected to increase by nearly 60 percent, and the debt by nearly $11 trillion. People can disagree on how to save our nation from a debt crisis. But who can defend the Senate majoritys decision to skirt its most fundamental duties? By refusing to offer a financial plan for three straight years by abnegating this basic obligation in a time of national crisis Senate Democrats have proven themselves unwilling, unable and unworthy to lead. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee.

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