President Biden is preparing to deliver a State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress after again missing his deadline to submit national security and spending plans to Congress.
Some Republicans in Congress want to hold Biden and future presidents accountable until the deadline with a simple sanction. There are no plans on time, no big speech under a proposal titled the SUBMIT IT Act, short for Send Us Budget Materials and International Tactics on Time.
The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 – updated several times – requires the president to submit his budget request to Congress no later than the first Monday in February. The National Security Act of 1947 requires the president to submit a national security proposal by the same day. But there is no enforcement mechanism for either, and that is where the SUBMIT IT Act could come in.
“President Biden’s budget was due on February 5, but Congress hasn’t seen anything,” Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., who sponsored the bill, told Fox News Digital.
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President Biden speaks to the National Governors Association during an event in the East Room of the White House on Friday, February 23. (Evan Vucci/Associated Press)
“This is irresponsible. Until Congress receives the president’s national security strategy and budget, he has no business delivering a State of the Union address,” Carter added.
The SUBMIT IT Act would prohibit House or Senate leaders from inviting the president to address a joint session of Congress until Congress obtains both plans.
If passed, the bill would affect the State of the Union from 2025 onward. This will have no impact on Biden’s State of the Union address this year, scheduled for March 7.
Biden’s delay is not unique, as his four immediate predecessors from both parties were also slow to submit their plans to Congress, including his likely 2024 Republican opponent, Donald Trump. So rather than a partisan issue, it is largely a long-standing issue between two branches of government.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, introduced a Senate version.
Rep. Buddy Carter told Fox that “President Biden’s budget was due on February 5, but Congress hasn’t seen anything.” (Tom Williams/Getty Images)
“If the president is going to be allowed the opportunity to address Congress and the entire nation, he should have a plan in place,” Ernst said in a public statement announcing the Senate version. “At a time when Americans are facing skyrocketing inflation and the world is on fire, we deserve more than empty rhetoric.”
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Biden’s budget proposals over the past three years missed the deadline by 115, 49 and 31 days, respectively, said Kurt Couchman, senior tax policy researcher at Americans for Prosperity.
“Over the past few decades, presidents’ budget and defense proposals have become increasingly delayed as missed deadlines have become an increasingly common symptom of the failure of the budget process,” Couchman said in a public statement supporting the legislation. “Congress and the American people deserve the opportunity to view and evaluate the president’s requests in a timely manner.”
Trump, who was 38 days late in his first year, and his three immediate predecessors also missed the budget deadline, according to Roll Call. It took President Barack Obama 98 days to present his first budget proposal in 2009, according to a Congressional Research Service report. President George W. Bush was 63 days behind on his 2003 tax plan. In 1993, President Bill Clinton was 66 days late.
Trump, who was 38 days late in his first year, and three immediate predecessors also missed the budget deadline, according to Roll Call. (ANR)
The Congressional Research Service report noted that the deadline was changed several times. Previously required in January, the most recent adjustment was in 1990, when the deadline was changed to say “beginning on the first Monday in January, but no later than the first Monday in February of each year.”
The Constitution requires the president to present a State of the Union update to Congress, but nothing requires that message be an address in a joint session. Every president, from Thomas Jefferson to William Howard Taft, sent an annual written message to Congress. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson broke that tradition with a speech to a joint session of Congress.
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Addressing a joint session requires an invitation from congressional leaders, which has typically been a formality.
But in 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., threatened to withhold an invitation for Trump to speak until the partial government shutdown ended. Trump suggested that he would deliver the speech at an alternative location. The shutdown ended and Pelosi invited him to speak.