House Republicans almost embarrass themselves

[Landslide Lyndon]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/04/pandemonium-dems-jam-panic-republicans-with-even-more-conservative-budget.php?ref=fpa

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."

Panic ensued. In the House, legislation passes by a simple majority of members voting. The Dems took themselves out of the equation, leaving Republicans to decide whether the House should adopt the more-conservative RSC budget instead of the one authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. As Dems flipped to present, Republicans realized that a majority of their members had indeed gone on the record in support of the RSC plan -- and if the vote closed, it would pass. That would be a slap in the face to Ryan, and a politically toxic outcome for the Republican party.
So they started flipping their votes from "yes" to "no."

In the end, the plan went down by a small margin, 119-136. A full 172 Democrats voted "present."

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I'll have to check the C-SPAN video... this ought to be interesting.

[Brittain33]

Then all but four of them voted to phase out Medicare.

They voted for a bill which will never become law, not in this Congress or a future one, and which easily gives rise to a true and devastating ad campaign against all of them.

Good luck finessing the argument by saying you were voting to end Medicare for young people, not the seniors who are going to come baying for your blood.

[cinyc]

Then all but four of them voted to phase out Medicare.

They voted for a bill which will never become law, not in this Congress or a future one, and which easily gives rise to a true and devastating ad campaign against all of them.

Good luck finessing the argument by saying you were voting to end Medicare for young people, not the seniors who are going to come baying for your blood.

241 minus 119 is not 4.

Democratic demagoguery over Medicare isn't going to work in the face of a $14 Trillion deficit.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Then all but four of them voted to phase out Medicare.

They voted for a bill which will never become law, not in this Congress or a future one, and which easily gives rise to a true and devastating ad campaign against all of them.

Good luck finessing the argument by saying you were voting to end Medicare for young people, not the seniors who are going to come baying for your blood.

241 minus 119 is not 4.

Democratic demagoguery over Medicare isn't going to work in the face of a $14 Trillion deficit.

Please, can you stop sounding like an RNC press release?

[cinyc]

Please, can you stop sounding like an RNC press release?

So you want to silence posters so this place to be a kinder, gentler Democratic Underground?  No thanks.

Only when you stop posting from Talking Points Memo, pretending it doesn't read like a DNC press release.

The bill didn't pass.  It won't become law.

[Brittain33]

Then all but four of them voted to phase out Medicare.

They voted for a bill which will never become law, not in this Congress or a future one, and which easily gives rise to a true and devastating ad campaign against all of them.

Good luck finessing the argument by saying you were voting to end Medicare for young people, not the seniors who are going to come baying for your blood.

241 minus 119 is not 4.

Oops, 2 Republicans voted present.

Where does the 119 come from?

On edit: I think I see the issue here. I'm talking about the vote to pass Mr. Courageous's plan that followed from this event.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You have no idea how much I want your party to believe that. FWIW, Republican demagoguery over Medicare worked very well in the face of a $14 Trillion debt (not deficit) in 2010.

Opposing the Republican plan has the double benefit of being both popular and the moral, ethical, and fiscally appropriate thing to do. The Ryan plan is a total sham, no plan at all. Obama is right.

[You kip if you want to...]

Seems a bit desperate/pathetic/selfish for the Democrats to do that...

[cinyc]

Then all but four of them voted to phase out Medicare.

They voted for a bill which will never become law, not in this Congress or a future one, and which easily gives rise to a true and devastating ad campaign against all of them.

Good luck finessing the argument by saying you were voting to end Medicare for young people, not the seniors who are going to come baying for your blood.

241 minus 119 is not 4.

Oops, 2 Republicans voted present.

Where does the 119 come from?

The final vote was 119-136 against the amendment.  Assuming all 119 who voted for the bill were Republicans, 241 (number of Republicans in the House) minus 119 Republicans voting for does not equal 4 Republicans voting against - more like 122, if every Republican voted, 120 if 2 voted present or did not vote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You have no idea how much I want your party to believe that. FWIW, Republican demagoguery over Medicare worked very well in the face of a $14 Trillion deficit in 2010.

Opposing the Republican plan has the double benefit of being both popular and the mol, ethical, and fiscally appropriate thing to do. The Ryan plan is a total sham, no plan at all. Obama is right.
[/quote]

The Ryan plan is at least a plan, even though you may disagree with the need to reign in reckless spending.  The Obama plan is no plan at all - a plan to kick the issue over to yet another worthless commission that nobody will agree to, plus tax hikes by another, convoluted name.  The fact is you could hike taxes on the so-called rich to 100% and confiscate all their wealth and there still would be a deficit.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Please, can you stop sounding like an RNC press release?

So you want to silence posters so this place to be a kinder, gentler Democratic Underground?  No thanks.

Only when you stop posting from Talking Points Memo, pretending it doesn't read like a DNC press release.

The bill didn't pass.  It won't become law.

Man, you're losing it. Try getting laid a bit.

[Brittain33]

The Ryan plan is at least a plan, even though you may disagree with the need to reign in reckless spending. 

I agree with the need to curb reckless spending, that's why I supported PPACA and other initiatives in the face of Republican attacks on Democrats for making "$500 billion in Medicare cuts" in 2010.

Ryan doesn't make any cuts in Medicare until 2022, when presumably the political will to cut benefits for seniors that's absent now will somehow materialize and become possible. His bold plan punts for 10 years to avoid doing anything that might hurt the largest generation of seniors in America's history from experiencing any kind of cost controls. Ryan endorses reckless spending for ten years and longer for everyone born before the mid-1950s.

[DrScholl]

I'm glad the Democrats did that, it's time for someone to actually make them support the over the top things they push for, instead of just talking about them. It's not like the budget would have ever made it through the Senate or been signed, so it was a win-win for Democrats.

[angus]

House Republicans almost embarrass themselves

almost?!

[opebo]

Seems a bit desperate/pathetic/selfish for the Democrats to do that...

Presumably this is sarcasm.  Every means necessary should be used against these.. well obviously no appropriate term is permissible.

[courts]

That sounds like a strategy, Democrats never use those anymore. Stop reposting Onion articles.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Please, can you stop sounding like an RNC press release?

So you want to silence posters so this place to be a kinder, gentler Democratic Underground?  No thanks.

It's a conspiracy to silence the great poster cinyc! Those liberals!

Oh, I know, you're going to report me for that, Sweetie.

[Lief 🗽]

Yeah, that was pretty hilarious. When the Republicans realized what was happening, Cantor (I think) tried to shut down the vote and everyone started yelling.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Then all but four of them voted to phase out Medicare.

They voted for a bill which will never become law, not in this Congress or a future one, and which easily gives rise to a true and devastating ad campaign against all of them.

Good luck finessing the argument by saying you were voting to end Medicare for young people, not the seniors who are going to come baying for your blood.

241 minus 119 is not 4.

Democratic demagoguery over Medicare isn't going to work in the face of a $14 Trillion deficit.
[/quote/]

What about the nearly $1 trillion over two years that will be lost due to extending the Bush tax cuts?

[courts]

What about the nearly $1 trillion over two years that will be lost due to extending the Bush tax cuts?

That argument might be plausible if it wasn't for the congress consistently finding ways to blow money even with the old tax rate. We need real spending cuts (I'd say military especially), caps and a lock box so Congress can't loot Social Security any further to fund very important projects like midwestern Rain forests. We could also stand to get rid of a lot of these stupid corporate tax breaks that do nothing but complicate the tax code and are basically just favoritism to a few politically connected companies. Of course the Republicans as a whole aren't serious about any of that, they just want to help out their banker buddies with 'privatization' schemes like Ryan's joke plan and more tax gimmicks.

[Brittain33]

By the bye, tactics like this are precisely why it was a good thing for Democrats to keep Nancy Pelosi in charge of our caucus as an effective leader. Despite all the advice from Republicans that her poll numbers were the deciding factor for dumping her in favor of someone else to be demonized.

[memphis]

What about the nearly $1 trillion over two years that will be lost due to extending the Bush tax cuts?

That argument might be plausible if it wasn't for the congress consistently finding ways to blow money even with the old tax rate.

We quickly reduced the annaul deficit and then briefly ran a surplus with the old rate until W screwed everything up.

[courts]

What about the nearly $1 trillion over two years that will be lost due to extending the Bush tax cuts?

That argument might be plausible if it wasn't for the congress consistently finding ways to blow money even with the old tax rate.

We quickly reduced the annaul deficit and then briefly ran a surplus with the old rate until W screwed everything up.

Actually, that's not true. We had a $133 billion deficit at the end of the the last Clinton budget (September 2001) despite the CBO's projections... Projections that had a number of flawed assumptions, not least of which were that we could continue borrowing from social security and that payroll tax revenues (or the economy for that matter) wouldn't be horrendous like they are now. We briefly approached closing the budget gap in 2000 but even then we were left with a $17.9 billion deficit. But none of that is the same as the debt which has continued to balloon regardless of who is in office, in part because of how much is 'off budget' or essentially mandatory. Of course I have no doubts that Bush compounded on our existing problems either but the point is things have been pretty bad for awhile now.

[memphis]

No, we had a surplus for a few years. But even if the Clinton tax rates had only reduced the budget gap to a small fraction of the Reagan/Bush41 years, that would have been a monumental accomplishment. Only the last two years on this graph are projections

[courts]

And I just told you why the CBO figures were misleading. Way to not refute anything I actually said.

[tpfkaw]

If only Pat Buchanan hadn't received so many votes in Allen West's congressional district.  Think of the surpluses that could have been had by invading Iran.