WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Leonard Lance (NJ-7) issued the following statement on the 1000^th day since the Democrat-led Senate passed a budget. Yesterday the White House announced it would again miss its deadline and fail to submit the President’s budget to Congress by the first Monday in February. 

"Producing a federal budget blueprint is one of the most basic responsibilities of the Congress.  Yet it has been 1,000 days since the United States Senate last offered a budget plan to the American people.  The last time the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate passed a budget was April 29, 2009. 

"House Republicans, under the leadership of Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, passed a budget plan last April that lowered spending, reformed entitlements, reduced our deficits and debt and put the Nation on a glide path toward a balanced budget.  The Ryan Budget was presented to the American People as a serious and honest approach to bringing fiscal sanity back to our Nation."

"But for nearly three years the Democratic Majority of the U.S. Senate has chosen to avoid the hard budgetary choices working families and small businesses must make every day.  The Senate's failure to pass a plan for our Nation's fiscal future has led to unchecked spending, higher deficits and debt and a diminished American economy.

"Later this evening the President will give his State of the Union address.  It is my hope that President Obama will call upon Senate leaders to do its job and put forth, debate and pass a credible budget plan.  Only then can we begin to have a serious, bipartisan discussion on how to best bring growth, prosperity, certainty and fiscal responsibility to our economy."

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