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While at a GOP retreat, House Republican leaders on Friday announced a vote next week on a three-month extension of the debt limit, with a requirement that both chambers pass a budget or else go without pay.

The added condition to the short term extension bill aims to force the Democratic-led Senate to pass a budget–-something the upper chamber hasn't done in four years.

"That is a shameful run that needs to end, this year," House Speaker John Boehner said in his closing remarks at the retreat, according to excerpts provided by his office. "We are going to pursue strategies that will obligate the Senate to finally join the House in confronting the government’s spending problem."

Building onto that, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said in a statement that if the Senate or House fail to pass a budget in three months, members of Congress "will not be paid by the American people for failing to do their job. No budget, no pay."

House GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy told CNN that "what we're trying to do is put us on a path to a balanced budget."

"April 15th is the deadline for both houses to pass a budget," he continued. "A budget is a roadmap to not only where you are but where you can go. Unfortunately the House has passed one the last two times {remember the Ryan Budget?}, but the Senate has not, and what has that created? A $16 trillion debt. An idea of not knowing where our economy is gonna go."

The short-term extension strategy represents a departure from recent discussions where Republicans pushed that any increase in the debt limit must include spending cuts that amounted to the same size of the increase.

And Republican leaders seem to be steering clear of any suggestions that the party is willing to risk allowing the government to default on its loans–the consequence should the debt ceiling be kept as is–as a way to put pressure on the White House and Senate Democrats to carve out drastic spending cuts. Much more at http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/18/house-republicans-anno
unce-vote-on-three-month-extension-of-debt-ceiling/?hpt=hp_t2]
Oh, for crap's sake! So THAT's what they came up with at their little "retreat"??

We do all, of course, remember WHY there've been no budgets, right?

Per Politifact:

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"Someday, somehow, somewhere, sometime, the president of the United States and his party have to be responsible for running the country," said Former Louisiana Congressman and Governor Buddy Roemer, 67, at a press conference in Bedford, N.H.

He continued: "I am embarrassed that two and a half years into his [President Obama's] term in office he's never submitted a budget. You know Congress has worked two years without passing a budget."

As per law, Obama HAS submitted a budget for each fiscal year he’s been president -- fiscal years 2010, 2011 and 2012, according to a quick check on the Government Printing Office’s website, where the documents are posted. It’s as simple as that.

Roemer erred in saying Obama had not submitted a budget. In fact, he’s submitted three.

But there is some truth on the second part of his statement. Congress didn't pass either a budget resolution or a spending bill in 2009 and 2010. A last-minute spending bill finally passed in April 2011 under the threat of a government shutdown. And, since then, the passage of the debt ceiling increase has made the passage of a budget resolution for the current fiscal year less pressing.

Taken in the context of his remarks, Roemer’s assertion implies that Obama and the Democrats have been irresponsible -- and as a result, there has been no budget for the last two years. Obama submitted budgets, but it is true that during 2009 and 2010, when Democrats controlled the Congress, no budget was passed. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/aug/05/buddy-r
oemer/obama-submitted-budgets/]
There's enough blame to go around on both sides, too:

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The Senate has not passed budget resolutions for fiscal years 2011, 2012 or 2013. The GOP-controlled House passed budget resolutions for fiscal years 2012 and 2013, but they were rejected by the Democrat-led Senate. Fiscal year 2013 starts Oct. 1.

But the Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee has countered that the Budget Control Act of 2011 is meant to serve as the budget for fiscal years 2012 and 2013. Enacted in August 2011, that legislation included provisions to raise the nation's debt ceiling and also set caps on certain types of future discretionary spending for 10 years.

"I just say to you, a budget is a limitation on spending. The Budget Control Act contained very clear limitations on spending for 2012 and 2013. So when our friends say there’s been no budget passed by this body, oh yes, there has," Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), the committee chairman, said Monday on the Senate floor. "There’s been a budget passed for 2012, one for 2013. Instead of a resolution, it was done in a law."

However, while the Budget Control Act includes some features of a budget resolution, it lacks others, according to federal budget experts.

William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, said in an e-mail that "a completed budget is expected to do much more than set spending levels for discretionary programs." http://www.politifact.com/new-jersey/statements/2012/sep/12/leonard-la
nce/congressman-leonard-lance-claims-us-senate-has-not/]

February of 2012:

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Seeking to avoid a politically toxic vote, Congress has failed to pass a federal budget for three years. This year's new twist? Congress might not even try.

On Monday, President Obama presented his proposed budget for fiscal year 2013. It's going nowhere on Capitol Hill, legislators and political analysts agree. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/0214/No-budget-No-problem!-
The-strange-politics-behind-a-budgetless-America]
Then, too

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Democratic officials say it would have been a waste of time to debate other budget bills because they believed the GOP would try to load them up with political gimmicks. "It takes two to tango, and Republicans aren't interested in working in good faith," says Jim Manley, former spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "It used to be that there would be debate on budgets, but Republicans aren't interested in legislating at all. They want to score cheap political points."

Republicans, especially those associated with the Tea Party, have been assailing Democrats in the Senate for not bringing a budget to a vote, using it as an example of their claim that Senate Democrats, not House Republicans, are to blame for Washington's dysfunction.

Republicans hope to rap the president with the 1,000-day issue as a way to offset any public anger that might come from his effort to run against a "do-nothing" Congress. http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/01/20/sotu-s
lap-date-marks-1000th-day-with-no-budget]
And...

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Senate Democrats didn’t pass a fiscal 2011 budget because "Republicans were threatening to hijack the budget process and waste the American people’s time with pointless political votes," a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told PolitiFact Florida. "Faced with this obstruction, we decided it would be a more productive use of the American people’s time to move on and address other issues critical to middle-class families."

For fiscal 1999, 2005 and 2007, the House and Senate failed to reconcile their different bills and pass a compromise measure. In these latter three cases, the Republicans were in the majority in both chambers of Congress.More at http://www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2012/apr/26/john-boehner/joh
n-boehner-says-senate-dems-havent-passed-budget/

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So my question is: If the Senate proposes a budget, and the House uses it as an excuse to do just what Harry Reid said, do the Republicans get to keep on claiming there's been "no budget"? If Cantor gets his way with "No budget, no pay", will that be ANY impetus for either Congress or Senate to agree on a budget (given almost all of them aren't hurting for money, as we all know)? And if they do; if both Houses manage to agree on a budget, will the House come up with some other reason not to raise the debt ceiling? Or what? Isn't it fun, watching "As The Government Turns"? Or is it "Days Of Our Lives (as run by a failed government"?