As you may recall, our titanic government - which claims the superior wisdom to manage numerous aspects of industry and private life better than American citizens can - has been running without a budget for the past three and a half years.
It looks like they???ll shoot for four years, as House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced on Tuesday afternoon that he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) have ???reached an agreement by which the House and Senate will approve a six-month continuing resolution in September to keep the government operating into next year.???
???During the August district work period,??? the Speaker continued, ???committee members and their staff will write legislation that can be passed by the House and Senate in September and sent to President Obama to be signed into law.???
There had been fears that nothing would be agreed upon prior to the August congressional recess, which would have brought us close to the September 30 close of the current fiscal year. Without a continuing budget resolution, another government shutdown drama would have ensued.
Update: Statement from Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham, highlighting the dangers of a lame-duck shutdown battle: "We applaud Speaker Boehner and Senator Reid for reaching an agreement to fund the government into 2013, thus avoiding a funding fight during a lame-duck session of Congress. A funding fight at that time would have added fuel to the fire during a session of Congress where lawmakers whom the American people voted out of office could push for tax increases, continued out-of-control spending, and a continuation of harmful policies that breed dependency on government. We look forward to evaluating the legislation when text becomes available. And, of course, this is only a first step towards averting a lame-duck disaster."
Update: On the other hand, Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin was not thrilled by the latest six-month budget punt: "Mr. Boehner and Mr. Reid, you might not have built our country but your lack of guts is destroying it. Just as in May when five budgets were proposed and voted down, the dysfunctional Congress, under your watch, has chosen again to punt on making the real spending cuts that Americans demand.
