"It is insane to think that tax and spending proposals of this complexity can be negotiated at this level of generality and put into statutory language in a matter of weeks. Didn't the health-care fiasco teach us anything about the importance of transparent and responsible legislative process?

Wise or foolish, this budgetary game of chicken is contrary to law. In 1974, Congress enacted the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, which sets specific deadlines and procedures for raising revenue, setting spending priorities, and adjusting the debt limit—all in the sunshine of public scrutiny, with objective evaluation of all plans by the CBO.

The president must submit a proposed budget "on or before" the first Monday in February. The CBO then has until Feb. 15 to score the proposal in accordance with criteria set by the statute. Those criteria are somewhat arbitrary, but their virtue is to apply the same metric to all competing proposals.

President Obama met the deadline, but his proposed budget was so out of touch with economic and political realities that the Senate rejected it by a vote of 97-0. In April, the president changed course and made a speech in which he proposed a new "plan" he claimed would decrease the deficit. The terms were so vague that CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf told Congress he could not score it. In effect, then, the process started off without the presidential budget required by law."

Read on.

Thanks, David.