Harry goes to work

This week Harry Reid will make what sadly passes for history in our nation's capital these days when his Democratic Senate passes its first budget in four years.

For the normal human being, the thought that must immediately come to mind is this: "Why should anyone care?"

Good question. The answer is that so much of what is so wrong with how our government handles our money these days — especially our manufactured debt-ceiling crises — stems from a Democratic Senate that has been refusing to do its job.

Here's how it works: President Obama and the Democratic Senate want a fiscal policy that mostly raises taxes instead of cutting spending. The Republican House wants just the opposite.

AP

Harry Reid

But Democrats want one other thing as well: They don't want to go on the record for their taxes and spending. By refusing to pass budgets, they really didn't have to.

Instead, the big decisions were hashed out in talks between Obama and House Speaker John Boehner. That made it easier for the president to use his bully pulpit to caricature the GOP as heartless pols and force them into a no-win situation.

So why the change now?

We credit the sequester. Not only has it not inflicted the economic Armegeddon the president predicted, it has also underscored his pettiness (closing tours of the White House) and helped shift attention from the GOP to all that spending going on in Washington.

Never mind that what the Senate Democrats have put forward is pretty awful. At least, they'll have to negotiate with Republicans and go on the record with a vote.

No doubt the give and take before the House and Senate reach something they can agree on will be contentious.

Then again, that's how the system works.

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