Unlike Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), who thinks it would be “foolish” for Senate Democrats to pass a budget — even though it’s been almost 800 days since they last did so — Virginia Senate candidate and former Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine admits that not having a budget is a “major problem.”
Kaine, who most recently served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), said he thought the Senate should pass a budget.
“I don’t disagree with you that the absence of a budget is a major problem,” Kaine said on CNBC, when former GE CEO Jack Welch pressed him on Senate Democrats’ lack of a budget.
Republicans have complained that only the GOP-controlled House has done the work to pass a budget, having authorized Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) proposed 2012 budget.
Democrats who control the Senate haven’t produced a 2012 budget. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, has said he intends to produce one, but not until the fiscal talks led by Vice President Biden conclude. The House and Senate last year, while both under Democratic control, also punted on passing a 2011 budget, in part because of the political dangers they faced in doing so.
Senate Democrats instead held a vote on Ryan’s budget, in part to put some vulnerable Republicans on the record when it comes to that proposal’s more controversial measures, including its reforms to Medicare. That budget failed, 42-55, and when Republicans offered a motion that resulted in a vote on President Obama’s 2012 budget proposal, it failed unanimously, 0-97.
“I think you raise a great point,” Kaine responded to Welch’s gripe about the lack of a budget. “This is a very serious problem with Washington and the legislative area not doing what it needs to do. I was a governor of Virginia, we passed budgets.”
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