Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz (D., Fla.) sought to blame House Republicans for blocking President Obama’s budget in a Fox News interview late Tuesday.
When host Bret Baier noted that while Democrats have loudly criticized the budget authored by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), "there is not a Democratic budget on the table."
"There certainly is," Wasserman Shultz responded. "President Obama proposed a budget."
Baier countered that the president’s budget is not being voted on.
"That’s right, because House Republicans voted it down," Wasserman Shultz said.
Baier then pointed out that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) had not introduced the president’s budget--or any other budget--in the Senate for a vote.
What Wasserman Schultz neglected to mention, however, was that House Democrats joined Republicans in unanimously rejecting Obama’s by a vote of 414 to 0. Wasserman Schultz was among those voting no.
Last year, the Democratic-led Senate unanimously defeated the president’s budget 97 to 0. Reid and Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) have refused to pass a Democratic budget in almost three years.
Democrats, who control 53 seats in the Senate, need only 51 votes to pass a budget. But Wasserman Schultz could not explain why Reid has refused to offer one in more than 1,000 days.
"We've got two budgets, two different directions that we could go Nov. 6, and leading up to Nov. 6," Wasserman Shultz said, citing Ryan’s budget and Obama’s budget. "We have two blueprint, two blueprints that show the different directions that this country could go."
One of those "blueprints" (Ryan’s) has received more than 500 votes in Congress. The other (Obama’s) has received exactly zero.
Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office calculated that Obama’s budget would have a detrimental effect on long-term economic growth and would add an additional $3.5 trillion to the federal budget deficit, as compared to current law.