By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
RollCall is reporting that the President is unlikely to submit a budget to Congress by the deadline required by law.
U.S. Representative Martha Roby (R) from Montgomery said on Facebook, “Looks like the President is running late on submitting his budget to Congress. Of course, that might not even matter since the Senate hasn’t passed a budget in almost four years.” Congresswoman Roby said, “I don’t understand the casual way some seem to deal with the budgeting process, one of the fundamental responsibilities of governing. The government must live within its means. That’s why the House has passed a budget that finally begins to restrain federal spending and reduce the deficit. The borrow-and-spend mentality many of our friends on the other side seem to have will only exacerbate our fiscal problems and lead us to become more like Greece. It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s time for fiscal sanity in Washington.”
Meanwhile the White House has not ruled out the possibility of making an end run around Congress and the approaching debt ceiling by minting a new trillion coin rather than agreeing to any spending cuts.
Congressman Jerry Nadler (D) from New York told reporters, “There is specific statutory authority that says that the Federal Reserve can mint any non-gold or -silver coin in any denomination, so all you do is you tell the Federal Reserve to make a platinum coin for one trillion dollars, and then you deposit it in the Treasury account, and you pay your bills.”
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Wednesday did not specifically rule out the possibility of minting a $1 trillion coin, but did tell reporters, “There is no plan B. There is no backup plan. … The only option is for Congress to do its job.”
According to a poll done by YouGov and The Huffington Post, 38% of voters are opposed to the coin minting scheme, while only 19% are in favor of President Obama authorizing the U.S. Treasury to mint such a coin. 43% answered that they are not sure about the plan. 41% are opposed to raiding the debt ceiling further, while 32% support raising the debt ceiling. 57% of poll responders said that defaulting on the debt would have a major negative affect on the economy. Another 15% said that it would have some negative affect and 8% believed that default would be good for the economy. Poll responders overwhelmingly supported cutting federal spending over defaulting on the debt.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Tuesday, “The president expects that Congress will fulfill its essential responsibility to pay the bills that Congress has incurred and remember, this is a responsibility that Congress assigned to itself in order to try to get Congress to spend less and be more focused on deficit reduction. … Congress has the power that it assigned itself to raise the debt ceiling, and it should do so, because the alternative is obviously unacceptable.”
But the YouGov poll finds that voters do not necessarily agree with the White House. Of those surveyed, 41 percent say Congress should not raise the debt ceiling, while 32 percent believe their representatives should. Yet those surveyed are also wary of default. Instead, voters favor cutting federal spending by 40 percent 6-to-1 over defaulting on debt payments.
The U.S. national debt is $16.4 trillion and the deficit is still over a $trillion even with the fiscal cliff deal which raised taxes on over 77% of American households. Fiscal Conservatives like Rep. Roby hope to reach some sort of a federal spending limit deal with the President and Senate Democrats which would lead to a balanced budget before the end of the decade.
Congresswoman Martha Roby represents Alabama’s Second Congressional District.
