greta: is the senate finally doing its job? it s been almost three years since the senate passed a budget. but tomorrow, the senate budget committee will take up a 2013 budget proposal. but do not celebrate, not yet. senate majority leader harry reid insists he has no intention of bringing the budget to the floor. today, ken conrad saying a vote on the budget will probably not happen until after the election. is this all a waste of time? brit hume joins us. is this a waste of time? exercise in futility? yes, in a word it is. it s not the worst thing that happened. they will bring the simpson-bowles committee recommendation to the committee. but the budget committee is not going to act on them. so it s, it doesn t mean much. certainly not a substitute for what the law requires, out theed now for the third year
some of this isn t out and out fraud. you understand the difference between fraud, waste and abuse. some of this is like giving them a cost plus contract to go monogram hand towels to drive up how much we paid them. who in the world would write a contract like that? the government didn t write it. the contractor did. why would you let the fox guard the chicken coop? why is that allowed? contingency contracting, what happened in iraq and afghanistan on contracting is shameful. if you look at the profiteering that is going on. now we try to get the defense department and state department to get the act together. greta: write a law and let personal injury lawyers get a percentage of going after any money and personal injuries will go out and recover some of the money. not a bad idea. greta: get it for you really fast. thank you. good luck. thank you very much. greta: straight ahead, could it really happen that the senate finally doing its job? senate hasn t passed a bu
last year that bind us. so there is no need for a budget. now, look, my view of that is the law requires a budget. and those spending limits are not, you know, there are specificity in them but there is not a budget. my sense about this is that the public doesn t follow this thing. the public doesn t know what the budget act is by and large. it doesn t know what the senate is supposed to agree annually on a budget. blueprint for engaging in the rest of the fiscal year. this will be with impunity and less punishing than voting on all the, all the controversial measures. greta: when you talk about the legacy, though, senator kent conrad legacy, wouldn t you think he d rather have a legacy he was persuasive and got a product and really accomplished something for the american people on a budget rather than playing the political calculus and did punching with his leadership?
he can t single-handedly bring it to the floor. greta: he could reyes hell. he could stand up and complain never on the senate floor and shame enough of the other senators so that we did move forward. he was here sitting where you are a couple of weeks ago when i was anchoring fox news sunday when chris wallace was away. it pressed him on that. he made the argument, you know, we do have that budget control act. binds us. it was the functional equivalent of a budget. greta: that is the party line. political party line. not getting the job done. look, i don t disagree with you, greta. i can understand why you might think he would want to do that. on the other hand, asking him to buck his leadership, if he doesn t believe that it will work, and actually get a budget passed through the senate or brought to the senate floor is a bit of exercise in futility. greta: if i circle around and say he worries about the legacy. i d rather have the legacy be buck last part of the term as
committee. met going to bring it to the floor. greta: if the words were serious, i d be laughing right now. for a senator s legacy for budget that will never come to floor because its party is blocking it. this isn t a budget anyway. this is a set of spending recommendations spending recommendations. it s like, spending all this time doing this. i d rather go to vegas and get in the bathtub with neely. if you think about it, one can sense political logic in what senator reed is trying to do. the public in 2010 establied it was upset spending and deficit. to pass a budget you have to cast vote to represent level of spending and taxation and all of that. that is what you do when you enact a budget.