CleverBomb
On Space Out
A funny thing happened on the way to the House GOP budget...
From TPM
What was supposed to be a routine vote in the House -- to knock down an amendment authored by conservative Republicans -- turned into pandemonium on the House floor Friday, as Democrats tried to jam the plan through, and hang it around the GOP's necks.
The vote was on the Republican Study Committee's alternative budget -- a radical plan that annihilates the social contract in America by putting the GOP budget on steroids. Deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, more severe entitlement rollbacks.
Normally something like that would fail by a large bipartisan margin in either the House or the Senate. Conservative Republicans would vote for it, but it would be defeated by a coalition of Democrats and more moderate Republicans. But today that formula didn't hold. In an attempt to highlight deep divides in the Republican caucus. Dems switched their votes -- from "no" to "present."
[end of excerpt]
Hilarity (ok, chaos...) ensued, as GOP representatives hurriedly switched their "yes" votes to "no" to keep it from accidentally passing! Had it passed, it would have taken the place of the "real" budget bill authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. The latter did in fact pass, later in the session.
The idea, neither unique to Republicans nor limited to this subject, was to be able to claim to have tried to push for the most extreme measures, knowing that they could blame the opposition party for stopping them, and then go on to pass what they'd agreed on previously. The Democrats managed to thwart this, and in the process achieved several objectives.
First, this was simply embarrassing to the Republican House leadership. Second, they forced several GOP reps to recant votes that would have endeared them to Tea Party activists (and may alienate them, for having actively blocked what could have been a Tea Party triumph). Third, they got a few of them -- briefly, before they flipped their votes -- on record as voting for a budget that quite frankly contains cuts that will not play well in their home districts. And finally, it demonstrated that the Democrats have a surprising degree of party discipline, in contrast to the Republicans who would have been unable to pass the budget deal last week without support from moderate Democrats.
Oh, and it would have been DOA when it reached the Senate anyhow, let alone facing a certain Presidential veto.
-Rusty
From TPM
What was supposed to be a routine vote in the House -- to knock down an amendment authored by conservative Republicans -- turned into pandemonium on the House floor Friday, as Democrats tried to jam the plan through, and hang it around the GOP's necks.
The vote was on the Republican Study Committee's alternative budget -- a radical plan that annihilates the social contract in America by putting the GOP budget on steroids. Deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, more severe entitlement rollbacks.
Normally something like that would fail by a large bipartisan margin in either the House or the Senate. Conservative Republicans would vote for it, but it would be defeated by a coalition of Democrats and more moderate Republicans. But today that formula didn't hold. In an attempt to highlight deep divides in the Republican caucus. Dems switched their votes -- from "no" to "present."
[end of excerpt]
Hilarity (ok, chaos...) ensued, as GOP representatives hurriedly switched their "yes" votes to "no" to keep it from accidentally passing! Had it passed, it would have taken the place of the "real" budget bill authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. The latter did in fact pass, later in the session.
The idea, neither unique to Republicans nor limited to this subject, was to be able to claim to have tried to push for the most extreme measures, knowing that they could blame the opposition party for stopping them, and then go on to pass what they'd agreed on previously. The Democrats managed to thwart this, and in the process achieved several objectives.
First, this was simply embarrassing to the Republican House leadership. Second, they forced several GOP reps to recant votes that would have endeared them to Tea Party activists (and may alienate them, for having actively blocked what could have been a Tea Party triumph). Third, they got a few of them -- briefly, before they flipped their votes -- on record as voting for a budget that quite frankly contains cuts that will not play well in their home districts. And finally, it demonstrated that the Democrats have a surprising degree of party discipline, in contrast to the Republicans who would have been unable to pass the budget deal last week without support from moderate Democrats.
Oh, and it would have been DOA when it reached the Senate anyhow, let alone facing a certain Presidential veto.
-Rusty
