Sen. Murray
Blasts Republicans For ‘Governing By Crisis’
In an interview with ThinkProgress on Tuesday, Senate Budget
Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) blasted the pattern of manufactured legislative crises that’s prevailed in Congress since
2011.
Murray, who was at Center for American Progress to give a speech on early childhood education, argued
that Republican obstructionism has prevented the government from effectively
planning for America’s future. The House and Senate have each passed budgets,
but barely three months from the beginning of fiscal year 2014, the budget
process is stalled. “So far the Republicans have refused to go to conference,”
Murray said. “They want to wait until the next crisis, which is exactly my
point: We should not be governing by crisis. We should be setting our goals as
a country and moving forward.”
Indeed, Senate Republicans are explicit about their efforts to
keep the politics of crisis alive. In floor speeches explaining their refusal
to name representatives in the legislative conference where House and Senate
spending ideas will ultimately have to be reconciled, leading GOP Senators like
Marco Rubio (FL), Rand Paul (KY), and Ted Cruz (TX) have insisted that the
budget conferees be blocked from addressing the debt ceiling in the budget
legislation. The debt ceiling has been the party’s primary means of
inflicting a crisis mentality on what Murray said should be deliberate,
forward-looking budget allocation decisions.
The conservative blockade of a budget conference may be losing
support from mainline Republican senators. Sens. John McCain (AZ) and Susan
Collins (ME) have publicly derided the scheme, and during an Appropriations
Committee hearing last week, five of the committee’s 14 Republicans voted with
Democrats to strip the crisis-inducing preconditions from the budget conference process.
Watch ThinkProgress’ interview with Sen. Murray for more on the
budget and her call for everyone to get on board with universal preschool:
No comments:
Post a Comment