Porker of the Month: Sen. Kent Conrad

By CAGW President Tom Schatz: Today, in commemoration/lamentation of the 1,000th day since the United States Senate Budget Committee last performed its most significant task, which is to pass a budget resolution, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) as the January 2012 "Porker of the Month". The last time the Senate approved a budget was April 29, 2009. The House has voted in favor of two budget resolutions during the past two years.

Today marks an important milestone in fiscal ineptitude and mindless brinksmanship. When the Senate last passed a budget, the national debt was an already appalling $11.15 trillion. In 2011, House Republicans drafted and passed a budget plan that would dramatically reduce America’s deficit and debt. The only Senate actions on budget resolutions last year were to vote 97-0 against President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget and 40-57 against House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (D-Wis.) Roadmap for America’s Future.

Since April 2009, the budget deficit has exceeded $1 trillion for three straight years, and the national debt has climbed by more than $4 trillion to $15.27 trillion. Chairman Conrad’s bewildering reputation as a budget hawk makes his legislative catatonia all the more frustrating.

Sen. Kent Conrad

The lack of activity by Chairman Conrad has not gone unnoticed. In June 2011, Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY) introduced the “Just Do Your Job” Act, which would prohibit further transfer of funds to the House or Senate Budget Committees and the corresponding Office of the Majority Leader if that body of Congress failed to approve a budget resolution for FY 2012. As Rep. Buerkle pointed out at the time, “Even the Libyan government, in the middle of a civil war, passed a budget on June 15, 2011.”

However, Chairman Conrad and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have made it clear that their decision to not enact a budget resolution is conscious, unified, and partisan. In a May 23, 2011 article in The Washington Examiner, Majority Leader Reid said, “There’s no need to have a Democratic budget, in my opinion. It would be foolish for us to do a budget at this stage.” The Examiner article also noted Chairman Conrad’s intent to “defer” work on the fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget indefinitely.

Consequently, for being the "Kim Kardashian of the Senate budget entourage" and cashing a hefty paycheck for doing nothing in the last 1,000 days, CAGW names Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad its January 2011 Porker of the Month.
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CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.


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