Conrad admonishes GOP for claiming Congress hasn't passed budget in 1,000 days

Pointing to the Budget Control Act the Congress passed last summer, Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) attempted to debunk the GOP's repeated claims on Tuesday that the Senate had not passed a budget in a 1,000 days.

"When our colleagues come out here and say we have not passed a budget in 1,000 days ... wow," Conrad exclaimed from the Senate floor. "Could they have really missed ... the consideration of the Budget Control Act? Did they really miss all of that or are they saying something they know not to be true?"

Several Republicans came down to the Senate floor on Tuesday to mark what they said was the 1,000-day anniversary of the last time the Congress had cleared a budget. Democrats, they asserted, were guilty of abdication of financial leadership. 

On Tuesday the National Republican Senatorial Committee also released a video and statement pointing out the anniversary.

"Today marks 1,000 days since the Democrat-controlled Senate passed a budget," said the release sent to reporters. "A lot can be done in 1,000 days."

But Conrad said the Budget Control Act, which the Congress passed last summer after weeks of horse-trading over raising the debt ceiling, included the budget for this year and next year and that in many ways it is "stronger" and "more extensive" than a traditional budget.

He also went on suggest that any of his GOP his colleagues who continue to repeat the 1,000-day line would be guilty of either gross ignorance or deliberate deception.

"Either they don't know what they did or they are misrepresenting what we all did," Conrad said.

"If I hear another assertion ... I will know that somebody is not telling the truth," he said. "[I] hope now we have laid this issue to rest."