Like all congressional budget resolutions, House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan's (R-WI) fiscal year (FY) 2012 Budget Resolution is not simply a chart of preferred spending and revenue levels, it's also a political statement guided by ideology. And Ryan's ideology demands that the federal government divert ever increasing sums from middle- and low-income families to big business and high-income families.

The House passed legislation (H.R. 2920) on July 22 that would reinstate statutory "pay-as-you-go" (PAYGO) budgeting rules, which were allowed to expire in 2002.

It's been an exceptional year. 2008 saw not only economic indicators that evoked memories of the Great Depression, but also a record-breaking federal budget deficit. The federal government, through several agencies, activated trillions of dollars in loans and asset guarantees. Congress approved the largest supplemental spending bill in its history and gave the Treasury Department the authority to expend the equivalent of three-fourths of the federal discretionary budget on one sector of the economy. But in many other ways, Congress proved to be unremarkable by staying true to its recent history of underachievement.

The House Ways and Means Committee made Social Security the focus of its work over the past two weeks, holding a number of hearings and announcing the intention to write legislation this summer. Rep. James McCrery (R-LA), chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security, stated House lawmakers will be ready to write Social Security legislation by July 1. However, this legislation could very well include a number of deleterious tax cuts -- masked as savings incentives -- that would primarily benefit the wealthy, not fix the problem of Social Security solvency, and would further add to the nation's budget deficits.