President Biden is preparing to deliver his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress after missing yet another deadline to submit a spending and national security plan to Congress.
Some Republicans in Congress want to hold Biden and future presidents accountable by the deadline with simple fines. The plan under the proposal, titled the “SUBMIT IT Act,” which stands for “Submit Budget Materials and International Tactics on Time,” will not be delivered on time and without any big speeches.
The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 (updated several times) requires the president to submit a budget request to Congress by the first Monday in February. The National Security Act of 1947 requires the president to submit national security proposals on the same day. However, there is no enforcement mechanism for either, and this is where the SUBMIT IT law may come into play.
“President Biden’s budget bill was scheduled to be introduced on February 5th, but Congress hasn’t seen anything,” bill sponsor Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) told Fox News Digital. Told.
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President Biden will speak to the National Governors Association on Friday, February 23, at an event in the East Room of the White House. (Evan Vucci/Associated Press)
“This is irresponsible,” Carter added. “Until Congress receives the president’s national security strategy and budget, the president has no authority to deliver the State of the Union address.”
The SUBMIT IT Act would prohibit House and Senate leadership from inviting the president to address a joint session of Congress until Congress has both versions.
If passed, the bill would affect the State of the Union address from 2025 onwards. This will not affect Biden’s State of the Union address this year, scheduled for March 7.
Biden’s lateness is not unique, as his four immediate predecessors from both parties, including likely 2024 Republican nominee Donald Trump, were also late in submitting plans to Congress. . So this is primarily a long-standing issue between his two branches of government rather than a partisan issue.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) introduced the Senate version.
“President Biden’s budget proposal was due February 5th, but Congress hasn’t seen anything,” Congressman Buddy Carter told Fox. (Tom Williams/Getty Images)
“If the president is given the opportunity to address Congress and the nation as a whole, he should actually have a plan,” Ernst said in a public statement announcing the Senate version. “At a time when Americans are facing skyrocketing inflation and the world is on fire, we deserve more than empty rhetoric.”
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Curt Couchman, senior fiscal policy fellow at Americans for Prosperity, said Biden’s budget proposals over the past three years were 115, 49 and 31 days past their deadlines, respectively.
“Over the past few decades, presidents’ budget and defense proposals have been increasingly delayed as missed deadlines have become a common symptom of a broken budget process,” Couchman said in a public statement supporting the bill. said. “Congress and the American people deserve the opportunity to see and evaluate the President’s request in a timely manner.”
Mr. Trump, who was 38 days late in his first year in office, and his three immediate predecessors similarly missed budget deadlines, according to the roll call. President Barack Obama was 98 days late in submitting his first budget proposal in 2009, according to a Congressional Research Service report. President George W. Bush’s plan for fiscal year 2003 was 63 days. In 1993, President Bill Clinton was 66 days late.
Trump, who was 38 days late in his first year in office, and his three immediate predecessors similarly missed budget deadlines, according to the roll call. (Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
The Congressional Research Service report notes that the deadline has changed several times. Previously required in January, the most recent adjustment was made in 1990, changing the deadline to “not later than the first Monday in January of each year, but no later than the first Monday in February.”
The Constitution requires the president to send Congress an update on the State of the Union, but there is no requirement that the message be an address to a joint session. Every president, from Thomas Jefferson to William Howard Taft, submitted an annual written message to Congress. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson broke with that tradition in his address to a joint session of Congress.
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Addressing a joint session requires an invitation from Congressional leadership, but this is usually a formality.
But in 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., threatened to withhold Trump’s invitation to speak until the partial government shutdown ended. President Trump indicated he would speak elsewhere. After the government shutdown ended, Pelosi invited him to speak.
