Mitch McConnell announced Thursday that the Senate will vote on the budget President Obama submitted to Congress in February

LOUISVILLE– U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell announced Thursday that the Senate will vote on the budget President Obama submitted to Congress in February. The President’s budget has already drawn bipartisan opposition because it spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much. If implemented, it would raise more than a trillion in new taxes, add another 13 trillion to the already unsustainable national debt and do absolutely nothing about the looming entitlement crisis or to preserve the promises Congress has made to future generations. The vote will allow members of the Senate to show whether or not they believe this budget, which one senior Democrat said “fundamentally puts at risk the economic security of the country,” is the right approach for our nation’s economic future.

“I understand that the Majority Leader would like to have a vote on the House-passed Ryan budget and we will,” McConnell said. “But we’ll have a vote on the President’s budget at the same time. Since there is no Democrat budget in the Senate, we’ll give our colleagues an opportunity to stand with the President in failing to address the problems facing our nation while calling for trillions in new spending, massive new debt and higher taxes on American energy, families and small businesses across the country.”

The Senate returns on Monday, but there is no date scheduled for the Majority Leader’s planned vote on the Ryan budget. The Democrat-led Budget Committee has yet to produce a budget or schedule a “mark up” of a budget resolution. This would be the second straight year without a budget resolution in the Senate.

“While Democrats have refused to offer a budget for the second year in a row, failed to protect families from policies that increase the price at the pump, and have yet to offer any serious plan to protect future generations from this administration’s spending spree, Republicans aren’t waiting for the next election to act.” McConnell said. “We are committed to creating an environment where jobs can come back, stopping the administration’s war on American energy during record gas prices, reducing the massive debt that is slowing job growth, and working to repeal the job-destroying health spending law and replacing it with commonsense reforms that actually lower costs.”

McConnell added: “House Budget Chairman Ryan presented, and the House passed, a budget to address our most pressing problems head-on at a moment when the President and other Democrat leaders simply refuse to do so themselves. It’s my hope that our friends on the other side recognize this effort for what it is — a serious, good-faith effort to do something good and necessary for the future of our nation and that, for the good of the nation, they’ll join in the effort at some point before it’s too late.”

TEXT CREDIT: U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell Washington Office. 317 Russell Senate Office Building. Washington, DC 20510. Phone: (202) 224-2541, Fax: (202) 224-2499

IMAGE CREDIT: This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.