Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games.
If you weren’t convinced that anything related to the federal budget on Capital Hill is completely nuts this year, just think about these three things, all of which are happening this week:
- The House is putting together a FY13 reconciliation package based on the GOP/Ryan plan it passed earlier this year even though (1) reconciliation is required to be based on the budget resolution conference agreement between the House and the Senate, (2) there will be no budget resolution conference report agreement this year and, therefore, there will be no reconciliation, and (3) nothing the House considers for its own private reconciliation has any chance of actually (or perhaps ever) being enacted.
- The Senate Budget Committee is trying to mark up a FY 13 budget resolution that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has already said will not be considered by the full Senate.
- The budget resolution that will be offered in the Senate Budget Committee is based on the plan proposed by the two chairs of the Bowles-Simpson commission that is thoroughly discredited after (1) the commission itself failed to approve it and (2) the House resoundingly rejected a similar plan just weeks ago.
Note: This would be worthy of a skit on The Daily Show or Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live if it weren’t so incredibly sad.
