You may have noticed the rollout of President Biden’s 2025 budget this week. I say “may” because, outside of the obligatory comments from financial media and think tanks, nobody seemed to care.
Even among those who might have cared at all about the budget, very few other than true budget geeks noticed that the document was more than a month late. I kept looking for the splashy headlines: “White House misses deadlines of Budget Control Act …Administration downplays violation of law.” Well, maybe next time.
One might expect Congress, especially in the opposition party, to clamor for all sorts of congressional investigations into how the White House is breaking the law. But that whole “let him who is without sin cast the first stone” proverb sort of gets in the way. Congress is required to pass its budget by April 15 each year, under the same Budget Act. The last time it met that deadline, Bill Clinton was president. Indeed, many years, Congress doesn't pass a proper budget at all, simply “deeming” that it has, so that it can move on to spend money or use the budget reconciliation process to circumvent Senate filibuster rules.
To the extent that members of........