Take Two on the Federal Budget

With the Senate poised to OK a bill to keep the federal government operating through September 30, 2015, as predicted, the supposedly bipartisan budget act (and Pentagon policy bill) lifts some of the sequester cuts and more importantly, avoids another government shutdown. BUDGET FOOTNOTE: The bill does NOT cut Social Security or Medicare benefits

(ADDITIONAL MEDICARE FOOTNOTE: The legislation only extends current Medicare payment rates for three months, though it also stops a planned cut of more than 20 percent to health care providers. That would allow Congress to try to find a more permanent “doctor fix” to avoid a deficit reduction measure (sequestration machination).

So the GOPers and the Dems hope the budget bill will act as a truce in the spending battles that have paralyzed Congress for nearly three years. Interestingly, leaders for both the Donkeys and Pachyderms are marginalizing hard-line conservatives over the matter.

BUDGET FOOTNOTE #2: The Pentagon/defense measure would, in addition to strengthening protections for military victims of sexual assault, leave open the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

However, also as predicted, the budget bill does axe supplemental unemployment benefits. Recall these supplemental unemployment benefits were enacted when the recession smacked us upside the head in 2008. Candidly, the problem became the some 1.3 million Americans who wouldn’t/couldn’t find work and who became addicted to this valued-added freebie.

Now I am not Scrooge or Grinch in this scenario, so to me, the timing on this particular matter is horrid… it was a case of real budgeting trumping political budgeting.  

Most members of Congress voted to extend these extra unemployment benefits several times over the past five years. Will they then subsequently address extending this critical program? Doubtful in the near term as they still must grapple with extending the national flood insurance program; the, exempting of short sale ‘phantom income’ from being considered taxable income by the IRS; and, the $1 trillion farm bill – to name a few pressing issues.

On the upside, the Budget Act cuts the deficit by $23 billion over the next ten years, as well as funding domestic and military needs and it adds back resources for scientific and medical research. Some fees will be raised BUT no new revenues have been created by closing tax loopholes

BUDGET FOOTNOTE #3: Las Vegas, IMHO, could not come up with odds to cover the fact that Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, an Orange County conservative, and Rep. Maxine Waters, a Los Angeles liberal, would be on the same side of a budget issue…  but they were and in a most peculiar way… they both voted AGAINST the budget bill.

The budget vote made mincemeat of the usual alliances within California's congressional delegation as nine of the state's 53 House members — seven Democrats and two Republicans — voted “NO.”

Democrats who said ‘nada’ were upset that the budget deal did not extend those extra unemployment benefits. Joining Waters in the ‘no way, Jose’ column were Reps. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park); Loretta Sanchez (D-Santa Ana); Sanchez's sister, Rep. Linda T. Sanchez of Whittier; Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-Chino); Barbara Lee (D-Oakland); and, Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles). Among CA's Republicans, Rohrabacher was joined by Rep. Tom McClintock of Elk Grove in voting against the budget bill.