Obama delays the budget process yet again

Image credit: Office of Management and Budget

A new report from Congressional Quarterly suggests that ObamaCare isn’t the only item being delayed in the White House these days. Apparently the official White House budget proposal, which is required by law to be submitted to Congress no later than the first Monday of February, is on track to be “at least a month behind” schedule:

From the CQ Morning Briefing:

WHITE HOUSE BUDGET DELAYED: The White House is said to be at least a month behind its own schedule for developing a fiscal 2015 budget, which by statute is supposed to be submitted to Congress on the first Monday in February. That will slow work on next year’s spending bills, even though the budget accord negotiated by House Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., established overall discretionary spending levels.

This is hardly shocking from a White House where delays, extensions, and “that rule doesn’t apply to me” thinking has become the norm. We don’t have to go into a long dissertation about the ever mounting White House-approved delays in ObamaCare. Nor Obama’s incessant foot dragging delays of the Keystone Pipeline.

The budget situation, though, is particularly egregious. With this year’s pending failure, five of Obama’s last six budgets have been submitted late, including last year’s FY2014 proposal which was sent to Congress 65 days late. That’s more than any president since the Budget and Accounting Act was passed in 1921.

As President Obama put it in a November radio address, budgets “expose what our priorities are as a country for all to see.” Ironic emphasis on the “all to see.” Apparently these Obama priorities are just not important enough for Obama “the Incompetent’s” White House to manage to write down on schedule.

There is no penalty for submitting a budget late (other than being perceived as incompetent), but the Obama White House’s complete disregard for the law here has real implications in the budget process. While the House and the Senate have agreed on top line budget numbers for FY2015 with the recent deal, the Republicans in the House still need to pass a series of appropriations bills for each part of the government, in order to specify what will be funded. Every day that the White House delays its budget proposal is another day that the House is forced to waste as FY2015 inches closer. Worse, the delays jeopardize any possibility Congress for to get it done.

Republicans could (and probably will) start forging their own bills, but Harry Reid would swat all those down. These delays in the past have been culpable for Congress’ failure to pass the necessary appropriations bills. It looks like the White House is looking to do it yet again.

Who wants to bet that, if and when this latest delay knocks the wind out of House Republicans, Obama will then go out on the campaign trail and rail against the “do-nothing” Congress?

At the end of the day, it’s just another Obama failure to lead. It leaves one wondering whether Obama’s White House is ignorantly unaware of the results of their failure, or if they just don’t care.