U.S. Sens. Joe Lieberman and Dick Blumenthal should reject the partisan antics of their leadership and approve a House budget resolution which will cut federal spending by $12 billion while fully funding military operations through September.

The Republican proposal passed, 247-181, largely along party lines with the entire Democrat Congressional delegation – Jim Himes, Joe Courtney, Rosa DeLauro, John Larson and Chris Murphy – opposing the spending cuts.

Both Lieberman and Blumenthal have been largely silent on the budget issue. The ongoing debate has become a surreal exercise as Republicans and Democrats negotiate over proposed cuts to a budget that isn’t a budget. Democrats, who controlled both the House, Senate and the White House in 2010, failed to produce a budget – opting for a continuing resolution to fund the government. For Congressional Democrats to complain about the process when they failed to do the basic work of the legislative branch during their reign won’t  cut it.

Voters turned out the Democrat majority in the House and added U.S. Senate members to the Republican ranks based on the public outrage with federal spending a ballooning national debt, now pegged at $14 trillion.

Democrats think a shut down will bear political fruit as it did in 1995. But the political and economic landscape is fundamentally different. First, the unemployment rate now hovers at 8.8 percent. In 1995, the rate was 5.6 percent and the deficit was not the threat to long-term economic survival.  And Republicans control one chamber of the legislative branch,  as opposed to 1995 when the Senate Majority Leader was Presidential hopeful Bob Dole and Speaker Newt Gingrich ran the House.

Republicans who were elected in 2010 came with a desire to actually do something about the size and scope of government. Democrat insiders think they can run out the same old tired cliche’s about “the loss of life saving services” and “caring more about the rich,” but voters know different.

A shut down can be averted if Connecticut’s Senators do their jobs, approved the House plan and get down to the real work  of deficit reduction.