No on-time budget? Vote out Congress members

Michael McCullough’s Jan. 24 letter hit the nail on the head when he said that Congress members should be ineligible for re-election if they don’t pass a budget on time.

Maybe they should immediately be removed from office. This would stop riders on budget bills that have nothing to do with the budget as we see time and time again.

There is an example of the effectiveness of this. The Australian Parliament, in 1975, didn’t pass a budget on time because of political wranglings. This resulted in a shutdown of the Australian government.

Queen Elizabeth II fired the prime minister. Three hours later, the Queen fired the rest of the Parliament. There has not been a late budget nor a government shutdown in Australia since.

Americans are divided right now, but I think this is one issue on which there would be a lot of common ground.

It would make the budget about the budget and the budget alone.

This story was originally published January 29, 2018 at 1:24 PM with the headline "No on-time budget? Vote out Congress members."