Produce a budget that gives regular government business a lower deficit, or give up on strong jobs growth. San Diego's Darrell Issa does not plan on letting Congress continue to take risks with the recovery economy by chewing the cud on short term budgets a month, or a week, at a time.
The No Budget, No Pay Act Congress passed, and the President signed in early February, to make legislators in the two houses pass a budget and raise the debt ceiling, enough to make room for the budget spending, together in one act, no later than May 19, ends a four year period of being soft on senatorial short sighted refusals to take the balanced budget matter in hand. A deficit above 1 trillion, after four years, will not again prove the norm the bicameral Congress has chosen.
Local markets do not have the investment money guarantees, both private and public, needed to raise the demand for workers. The budget bill defeats, and a roundabout approach to finding middle ground on a balanced budget, "have led to a massive increase in debt and has created a sense of uncertainty that has harmed the economy and negatively impacted job creation." One of San Diego's largest set of employers, the defense companies, will lose recovery opportunities as long as the uncertainty lasts. They can not "build for the future," Issa has informed the public.
With the sequester cuts set for March 1st, there is no place to hide. President Obama has set the jobs loss mark, if the Congress fails to act to stop the cuts as he requested again this weekend, at thousands of jobs. Jobs the middle class can not give up, and count on strong workforce production overcoming the threat of economic slow down.
Even STEM jobs will not pick up in San Diego like Issa planned when he passed the STEM Jobs Act last year. Strong growth trends in the highly educated labor markets can level off.
Ineffectual attempts to end the budget overspending irregularity will get resolved by the simultaneous raise in the debt ceiling that Congress has relied on 15 times during the last 30 years. But, that is the least the Senate can agree on. Spending must get held back, even if Obama succeeds in using taxes on the rich that have benefitted from loopholes to pay for spending in the future.
"Hardworking Americans are fed up," Issa has said.
Issa still waits on President Obama's run down on the specifics of how the spending reductions and entitlement reforms he proposes will lower the deficit by 4 trillion dollars over the long term. The State of the Union Address did not show the legislators in both parties the way, Issa said, to agree on a plan to put an end to the "spend first, pay later" mentality. The current Congress still rates poorly. The responsible governance Issa has asked return to Washington, DC can handle the hardest of times. Obama's administration has to add up deficit reduction successes to the highest mark. More progress is owed to taxpayers. Not just three years of deficit cuts faster, in size, than any since World War II.
America deserves a fair chance at having a national budget with a deficit below the 3 percent of GDP threshold the President's administration has resolved to come below by 2015.
This is an On The Watch Take.
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