NYT Editorial: The Spoils of Defeat

Published: November 24, 2006

The departing Republican majority in Congress is about to leave the nation a memorial to its own shameful history as the grand enabler of record debt and deficits. G.O.P. leaders are preparing to walk away from their most basic constitutional responsibility — passing a budget. Instead of finishing work on government spending bills needed for the next year, they’re reported to be planning nothing more than a cut-and-paste, short-term continuing resolution. That will allow them to run out early from their lame-duck session, leaving the mess to the incoming Democrats in January.

Stopgap resolutions create a budget autopilot that does not allow for shifting conditions and costs in education, housing and other major agencies. Administrators warn that it will cause cuts in school breakfasts and shelter for the poor. There is no need for this angst except that Republican strategists plotting a comeback clearly want to pour sand into the Democrats’ agenda even before they take the gavel.