For a second straight year, Republicans engineered a vote in the Senate on President Obama's budget in a bid to embarrass Democrats politically, as Senators voted 99-0 against Mr. Obama's spending plans. Democrats labeled it a stunt, while GOP lawmakers said it was evidence that the White House isn't serious about tackling the budget deficit.
“Once again, the Senate spoke unanimously against the President’s unserious budget," said Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell in a statement after the vote.
"The President should put forward a budget that earns at least one vote in Congress," said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI).
Back in March, the House voted 414-0 against the Obama budget, which Republicans were only too happy to trumpet in a blizzard of news releases.
"0 - 513: Obama's Budget Now a National Laughingstock," read one headline from the office of Speaker John Boehner.
The votes occurred as the GOP took advantage of a little known piece of a federal budget law that allows anyone to force action on a budget in the Senate if a budget resolution has not been acted on by April of each year.
Democrats said the entire day's debate reeked of Republican politics, but they were more than happy to use the time to play a little politics of their own and lambaste GOP budget plans from several budget hawks like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), as well as the budget approved by the House, which was authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).
"What we're really debating is whether we go back to policies that put us in the huge deficit ditch that we find ourselves in," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (R-MI), who spoke on the Senate floor with a giant sign next to her that read, "Budget Control Act Passed 74-26."
That was the deal on the debt limit approved in early August of 2011, which set spending limits for the Congress - for Democrats, the budget must go to those levels, while Republicans want to spend less.
"A budget isn't just a jumble of numbers, it's an expression of principles," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), who joined fellow Democrats in savaging the Ryan budget from the House, arguing it would strip away a safety net for Americans hit hard by recent economic troubles.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid set the tone for the day by describing the budget debate as a "waste of time," as he labeled the GOP offerings "stunt budgets."
Under federal law, the House and Senate are supposed to approve a "budget resolution" by April 15 of each year - that is a non-binding document which sets the parameters for spending bills to be approved by lawmakers later in the year.
But it hasn't worked too well.
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) cited a telling statistic, that in the past 36 years, the Congress has only met that April 15 deadline a half dozen times.
Since 1976, the Congress has only twice approved its spending bills on time.
The difference was that back then, the deficits were manageable.
When I was a Page in the U.S. House in 1981, people were outraged that the deficit was going over $100 billion.
A lot of people would gladly swap a $100 billion deficit for this year's estimated $1.3 trillion.
And so, after a full day of budget bellowing, both sides headed home Tuesday evening from the Senate feeling like they had gotten the better of the other in the political debate.
Unfortunately, they were also no closer to any agreement on how best to erase yearly deficits which were once unimaginable.
