Happy Thanksgiving

Recently in Washington

Last week the House passed H.R. 2112, legislation which included the FY12 federal budgets for the USDA and related agencies, the Departments of Commerce and Justice and science agencies, and the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.  This legislation also included a continuing resolution preventing a government shutdown through December 16. 

The House also voted on H.J.Res. 22, the Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which failed to pass under the two-thirds vote required by the Constitution.  Congressman Simpson, who is a cosponsor of this legislation, supported it on the floor.  The House also passed H.R. 822, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011.

Simpson Supports Balanced Budget Amendment
Congressman Mike Simpson, a senior member on the House Budget Committee, voted for H.J.Res. 2, proposing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States.   While it was supported by a majority of members, it failed in the House when Democrats largely opposed the bill, which required two-thirds support for passage because it is a constitutional amendment.  The final tally was 261-165.

“I was disappointed with the outcome of this vote,” said Simpson, a long time cosponsor and supporter of a balanced budget amendment. “This amendment would ensure that the federal government would finally begin to live within its means after years of accelerated spending and growth. Just as families balance their checkbooks and weigh the value of purchases against their available funds, it is long past time Washington, DC, did the same.”

“With the national debt at $15 trillion and yearly deficits approaching $1.5 trillion, this amendment would immediately end the practice of spending more than you can afford,” added Simpson.  “Congress has proven time and again it is incapable of balancing its budget, as states like Idaho are required to do every year.  The fact that the federal government has balanced its budget only six times in the past half-century tells you everything you need to know.”

The Budget Control Act, passed in August, required that a balanced budget amendment vote take place in the House and the Senate – with the effort now failed in the House, the Senate vote will be largely ceremonial.  That vote is expected to take place after Thanksgiving.

In the Press

Diverse Coalition Urges Deficit Panel to Aim High
By John Stanton, www.rollcall.com, November 16, 2011.  View article here.
A bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers today urged the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction to ignore pressure from their political wings and craft a massive deal to cut the nation’s deficit that includes both changes to entitlements and new taxes.

Although talks have stalled in recent days, dozens of Members gathered in the Capitol to give the panel moral support and urge them to aim their sights high.

The bipartisan group, which organizers said counts more than 150 Members of the House and Senate, “want to work on this and want to make the tough votes” to pass a large package, said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), one of the organizers.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) agreed, saying that “committee members, for the sake of the country ... [should] recommend a package of cuts, revenues and reforms” that would cut trillions of dollars from the deficit over the next decade.

For many members of the coalition, calling for either new revenues or serious changes to Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements runs counter to their own preferences.

For instance, a number of the Senate Republicans in the coalition have also recently signed on to a letter calling for no new taxes. And while that may be their personal preference, the lawmakers nevertheless are “ready to make the compromises and build the solutions” needed for a large bipartisan deal, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said.

Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), one of the House’s staunchest progressives, agreed, saying that “the best way” for entitlements to be protected in the long term is an approach “where everything is on the table [so] we can make the tough decisions.”

Hoyer and others also charged that the super committee’s work has significantly broader implications, insisting that the public and the world needs a strong demonstration of bipartisanship.

The public does not “believe we can work across the aisle. We’re here today to say we must work across the aisle in both chambers,” Hoyer said.

Likewise, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) called the fight over the deficit “a proxy of whether our democratic institutions are up to the job in the 21st century.”