Senate rejects both GOP & Dem Budget Proposals

In an effort intended to demonstrate a walk to progress, both the GOP $60 Billion Budget cuts bill and the Democrat $12 Billion budget cuts bill were voted down today.

The GOP bill received 44 aye votes while the Dem bill received 42 aye votes.

Reports say the votes were meant to show Tea Party voters that their desired huge cuts were not responsible or possible while also demonstrating to liberal voters that more needs to be done in terms of budget cuts to come to a consensus on the budget.

From the AP: Republicans dominating the House, driven by a campaign promise to bring return domestic agency budgets to 2008, drove through last month a measure cutting more than $60 billion, imposing cuts of 13 percent, on average, to domestic agencies.

Senate Democrats had been slow to respond. Their alternative, unveiled only on Friday by Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, cuts about $12 billion below levels enacted for 2010. It's also $30 billion below a Senate omnibus spending measure that Republicans sidetracked in December.

Inouye said his bill represented months of labor by panel members and their aides and "makes real cuts to real programs. But the cuts ... are based on hearings, testimony and a thorough analysis of the current needs of every agency and department. By contrast, the Republicans in the House have thrown together a proposal ... based on the campaign promise to reduce spending by $100 billion."

The White House issued a statement Wednesday clearly stating that the administration opposes the GOP plan and that the president will veto any bill "that undermines critical priorities or national security through funding levels or restrictions, contains earmarks, or curtails the drivers of long-term economic growth and job creation while continuing to burden future generations with deficits."

Both plans would have funded the federal government through the end of September.