Whether you should like it is a different question, but it will be law soon.
Via USA Today, Senate vote clears budget deal for passage this week:
The Senate on Tuesday cleared a key procedural hurdle for final passage of a two-year, bipartisan budget deal before the end of the week.
By a vote of 67-33, Senate Democrats easily surpassed the 60-vote threshold required to end debate and move toward approving the legislation, which is expected by Thursday.
“It is a step in the right direction and a dramatic improvement over the status quo,” said Senate Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., who crafted the agreement with House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis….
Twelve Republicans voted to move forward on the budget deal, including Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Susan Collins of Maine, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Orrin Hatch of Utah, John Hoeven of North Dakota, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, John McCain of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Rob Portman of Ohio.
All Democrats supported the deal.
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Comments
Iowans love them some Paul Ryan. FOX says 78% of us approve of him. Get used to it. We’re about to hand the nation another loser.
What do you mean “we”. If the Institutional Republicans are concentrating on enacting the Democrat agenda piecemeal by voting with them on everything critical, why bother supporting them?
Subotai Bahadur
Hey, you forgot to call him a RINO.
Isn’t that what every Republican gets called by people who support the Democrats, as soon as he does anything?
No, Valerie – your projection is a spectacular fail.
A Republican is called a RINO by real conservatives when he or she assists the Dems in promoting their leftist agenda.
A little early to be worrying about 2016, therefore these little tidbits the media pushes at us, are just that right now. A lot is going to happen between now and then.
I will reserve judgement on this. Yes, the additional spending and release of the sequestration is a bad idea in the long run. But this effectively makes Obamacare the sole domestic issue in the country. Like the good professor says, Obamacare is like peeling an onion of fail. With each new layer comes a new level of failure. If the Republicans cannot convince the voters that they were better off before Obamacare and it must be entirely repealed, then the country deserves this astounding, mindnumbing and enslaving government.
Government shutdowns and budget battles are merely the Democrat Party’s preferred distractions. They have others, currently being spruced up for deployment: income inequality, war on women, immigration, minimum wage, etc., etc.
When will the GOP catch on that you cannot neutralize issues the Dems might turn against you and simply move on, as if they’ll just throw up their hands and quit? They simply shuttle in some other thing to bash Republicans with.
Points for GOP to ponder:
1. Appeasement delays your ultimate defeat, not victory.
2. There is no appeasing the Democrat Party in the first place.
3. To make an omelette……
That will last exactly until next month. At which point Boehner, Ryan, et.al. will begin the move to pass the Democrats’ “Permanent Amnesty, Non-Citizen Voting, and Open Borders Act” that they have promised.
Ryan’s negotiated collapse removed the ONLY miniscule attempt to control spending in a generation. It made it easier to raise taxes in the future. It delayed any votes on the “next” budget until after any putative elections in 2014. And it did cut the pensions of MILITARY retirees, while leaving the civilian drone class intact. All in return for yet another handful of magic beans in the form of pinky-swear promises of out year cuts.
Enough of the base is getting tired of being stabbed in the back by its supposed “leadership”, that whoever the Institutionals nominate for any putative 2016 elections is going to be a historical footnote, because they will not last that long.
Subotai Bahadur
Agree, and it might be the saving thing for the GOP, who likes to be stupid. By getting the budget deal off the table, it allows the sole focus to be Obamacare, where the GOP can win – if they want to – and the Dems can only lose.
BTW, stopping some of the sequestration cuts is important, though folks might be upset about not having “cuts.” The military took the biggest hit from the sequestration legislation with a significant percentage of “savings” coming from their budgets vs the bloated entitlement entities. IOW, the sequestration hurt them the most, so lets hope the changes restore some of the military monies.
Yeah, you’re a real fixer, Paul, the real “go-to guy,” the up-and-comer, the prodigy wiz-kid. Yes, sir, a real J. Pierrepont Finch with “your upturned chin and the grin of perpetual youth.” The real future of the party!
What a hopeless whoredom is Washington.
I’m with Pablo. This is a small tempest compared to ObamaCare. The federal budget will be little different either way as neither party is interested in cutting spending. For that we need a new Congress which we WON’T GET unless we remove the various distractions in front of the low- and middle-information voters.
Henry points out that the Democrats will simply move on to other issues. Well that’s the trick, right — if Pubs let them do that then the Pubs deserve to lose. It’s all about ObamaCare with side dishes of presidential overreach, Benghazi and loss of American stature in the world. If the Pubs allow themselves to fight another ‘war on wimmin’ or on immigration, etc. then they deserve to lose.
Frame the debate. That’s something the Stupid Party hasn’t been able to do since Reagan. I’m not sure that Ryan knows how to frame the debate, but he at least is removing a distraction.
So, as I understand it:
Most of you don’t like this deal, but have no alternative in mind.
Those who do have an alternative in mind seem mostly in favor of another shutdown, so they should probably have conservators appointed.
Those with specifics in mind just want to keep the sequester cuts, which is what Boehner was doing in September when Cruz roused the rabble and derailed that train. Boehner’s “clean” CR would have kept sequester in place for a full year and set the baselines lower going forward, and Reid and Obama would have taken the deal.
But, no, you and Cruz knew better. Shut down the government for the purpose of “defunding” Obama-Care, even though it was not funded by the budget. Yessiree, that was some brilliant thinking there, Hoss.
Don’t blame Ryan for losing the sequester cuts you pissed away yourself, mmmkay?
We’re well aware of the RINO point of view, but thank you.
derp
Apparently Estragon, like John Boehner, is incapable of understanding that preferring A to B while preferring B to C is not a contradiction. Or is willing to pretend not to understand in an attempt to score a cheap and empty rhetorical point.
And then there are the Republicans… They are not all created equal. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just naive about the DC dynamic.
Where is our representation?
What representation.
We have none.
Another reason to not vote Republican.
One point that keeps getting skipped over is that with the budget deal, we’ll HAVE a budget again. Obama had too much control over the government purse with the Continuing Resolutions, especially since each one was a distracting battle.
Patty Murray is perennially voted by Senate staffers as the dumbest Senator. Yet, she bested Paul Ryan. Perhaps we are lucky Ryan is not VP — he makes Biden look bright.