President Obama’s Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, said in congressional testimony today that the failure of the Senate to pass a budget harms economic growth.
Bernanke chose not to comment on “parliamenary maneuverings,” but addressed the particular effects of not having a Senate budget. “Is uncertainty about the future of the tax code, government programs, and so on, a negative for growth?” he said, rhetorically. “I think it is, because firms like to have certainty [and] like to be able to plan.” He was responding to a question from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who had asked how “the uncertainty caused by the Senate not having passed a budget” affected the economy.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has repeatedly refused to pass a budget, which he could do even if only Democrats voted for his budget. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., recently said that “there’s no excuse” for the refusal to pass a budget. “They don’t want to risk the next election,” he said of his party’s Senate leadership.
“Majority Leader Reid has closed the ship’s bridge and locked the wheel,” Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said today. “He says the Democrat Senate will decline to offer a budget resolution for the third straight year. Not once has this occurred since the Congressional Budget Act was passed in 1974.”
