Federal Budget Madness

It has been a week since the U.S. stock markets had their big and still unexplained drop amid concerns over spreading economic troubles in Europe over the fiscal situation in Greece.  On Capitol Hill, it’s almost like it never happened.

Oh yes, there were hearings about why the market dropped.  There have been hearings on how the Greek situation could affect world markets.

But there has been hardly a peep out of either party about addressing the giant Budget Elephant in the room, known as the federal budget deficit.

But when you think about it, can we really be surprised?

It seems so easy to demand action and denounce the job Congress has done with the federal budget.  The deficit is out of control.  Spending has gone up under both Republican and Democratic Presidents and Congresses.

One clue to why might be if you were to take a look at the personal finances of many Americans, which show that of those American families that have credit cards, the average credit card debt per household is $16,007.

In other words, members of Congress do what a lot of people are doing at home.

Nothing seems like it is going to be done this year about holding down spending.  Democrats are readying a huge package that will renew dozens of expiring tax breaks, pay for a Medicare doc fix and much more, all without paying for the entire bottom line.

And the bottom line may be getting a lot worse while we stand on the sidelines.

On Wednesday the Treasury Department reported that the federal deficit hit a record high for the month of April as revenues coming into Uncle Sam fell sharply.

Think about that for a second.  Usually there is a surplus in April, because everyone is paying their taxes at the last minute.

But this year, the April deficit was almost $83 billion.  Last year, the April deficit was $20 billion, and the overall deficit turned out to be over $1.4 trillion.

This year it is $83 billion – which might indicate an even higher yearly deficit.

It doesn’t look like Congress is going to do anything about that deficit this year, as Democrats wait for a special deficit commission to deal with the matter.

In fact, one member of the House Appropriations Committee told me the other day that he won’t be surprised if none of the 12 budget bills that Congress deals with for next fiscal year gets done this year.

Meanwhile, the Senate Appropriations Committee starts work today on a $60 billion emergency supplemental funding bill that will include money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, FEMA disaster work and more.

We’ll see if Republicans try to block that plan because it isn’t paid for with offsetting cuts.

If the GOP does that, then reporters will be forced to remind them that when Republicans were running the show during the first six years of the Bush II Administration, they didn’t pay for those emergency war funding bills with offsetting cuts either.