The government will run out of money…again…at midnight Friday evening. The fix is the passage of a continuing resolution that will fund the government for days, weeks or months depending on the Congressional mood at that time. When passed this will be the 7th continuing resolution in the past 900+ days.
The holdup stems from the fact that some members of Congress want to tie passing a continuing resolution with extending the payroll tax cut…or approval of the Keystone pipeline…or tax increases on the rich…or any number of other ideological shenanigans that both parties like to use to get what they want.
At risk are federal payroll paychecks, social security checks, unemployment payments, veteran’s benefits, welfare funds and a whole host of other government services that the public counts on receiving each month.
If all of this sounds familiar…it should…because this happens whenever the time period for the last continuing resolution draws to an end.
The reason that Congress has to go through this ridiculous process is because the Senate has not passed a federal budget in over 900+ days. Why? Because no one in Congress has the stones to make the tough decisions necessary to pass a realistic, fiscally sound budget. They just kick the can down the road hoping that someone else will risk his or her political career to do the right thing.
There really is a simple solution to this problem.
The public should demand passage of a federal law that simply states that if Congress fails to pass an annual budget…then Congress doesn’t get paid. Perhaps they could forfeit their lucrative health insurance benefits as well.
Let’s see how they like having their benefits withheld.
After all if there isn’t any money to pay the elderly, the infirmed or the veterans then how can we afford to pay congress their salaries or their other lucrative benefits?
Sounds like a plan…
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