The Senate, on a motion to table brought by Harry Reid, just killed the Cut, Cap & Balance Bill passed in the House without any floor debate.
Unlike a motion for cloture, which would have required a day of floor debate, Harry Reid managed to kill the bill without any television clips of Senators staking out their positions.
Since there is no other plan proposed by anyone, including Senate Democrats and Obama, this leaves the nation with no plan to deal with the debt ceiling.
Mark Knoller of CBS News tweets that having killed the bill, Harry Reid has decided that the Senate should take the weekend off:
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Americans keep on electing these jokers, we’re not heading for anything we didn’t ask for.
As badly as the republicans are going to botch the PR war (they will, they always do), I think democrat hopes that this mess will somehow work to their longterm benefit (as in 2012) are wildly misplaced. A general “throw the bums out” sentiment in the populace, which is what’s coming, is not going to help the party with the most senators standing for election next fall. That goes doubly for the White House.
The American public can be quite foolish, but they aren’t stupid.
Bicameral government in this country is so corrupted today that the basic process just cannot take place. The House did its job by (as it did with the bill repealing ObamaCare) presenting a bill for CC&B. If the process worked, the Senate would now discuss it, open the floor for amendments and then go to conference committee to hammer out the differences.
But our government has descended into a process of secret backroom dealing followed by kabuki and then cramdown.
Let’s throw a monkey wrench into this machine already and replace it with the government created by our Constitution. This government is determined to go over the cliff. We don’t have to follow them. It’s still our government if we stop holding our noses and voting for it.
The Democrats just made it abundantly clear that they are not willing to compromise or even negotiate, but instead, they are willing to totally shut down the process with their Senate veto power. The Republicans now need to respond by exercising their House veto power and not even vote on anything brought to the table by Obama or the Senate that does not meet with their approval.
The Republicans should now walk out of all talks and tell Obama and Reid that they will not return to the bargaining table until Obama submits either a plan or amendments to CC&B.
I am now totally ok with a government shutdown.
That’s exactly right. If the Senate/POTUS can’t follow the rules and produce a specific document for consideration and deliberated in the process defined in the Constitution, no deal. We can’t continue to govern around the Constitution with “gangs of xxx” forever.
All I hear on the radio are reports of Republican’s being unwilling to compromise, and how Republicans made a ‘short-sighted promise’ to not raise taxes. I can’t believe that people buy that kind of garbage media coverage. Pretty sad that the Dems refused to even discuss the bill. Instead of pointing out where they think compromises should be made, they will just continue to claim that the bill amounts to putting a gun to your grandma’s head.
Question: Why is the Senate trying to come up anything? According to the Constitution, bills that deal with revenue start in the House. Am I missing something? The House did their job and passed a revenue bill. The only thing the Senate should be doing is debating that bill and voting on that bill. How can the Senate just “come up with their own bill? (Gang of 6, McConnell Plan…etc.)” That’s unconstitutional!
Wake up, people! The Democrats want us to default. They will push Timothy Geithner to pay the overpaid bureaucrats at the Department of Education or the EPA, and not pay out Social Security checks or military pay. The Democrats are rolling the dice on the premise that Americans will blame Republicans for the U.S. defaulting on its debt. And they have a pretty good chance of doing that because of the assistance they get from the MFM.
Defaulting will mean higher interest rates, more job loss, and a downgrading of our credit rating, and Obama can hit the campaign trail saying “Well, we tried to end the bad economy I inherited from Bush, but the evil Republicans just wouldn’t work with us Democrats. The evil Republicans don’t seem to understand I Won.”
Remember, Democrats only support compromise when they are the minority and want the Republicans to cave to their socialist policies. When they are in the majority, compromise is no where to be found behind huge mahogany doors where they shut out Republicans and write the biggest theft ever from Americans, Obamacare.
Yet, stupid people, the zero-liablity taxpayers, will continue to vote for them.
Cloture
This is a must-read of why the CC&B is a hoax. This is from a Constitutional originalist:
http://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/why-the-balanced-budget-amendment-is-a-hoax-and-a-deadly-trap/
The Debt Ceiling Debate is FUBAR! I blame BOTH sides.
Remember, Nevadans recently reelected this idiot. Besides the recent Costco-Metro PD slaughter of a CCW permittee, this is another reason I’ve chosen a personal boycott of all things Nevadish – just to ensure I don’t inadvertently pass on the message I think the entire states might not suck
Professor, what is your opinion of the analysis Khan links to? It seems to follow , but I’m not a law student. Do the arguments hold water? I’m not particularly bothered by thevoting exceptions ..2/3 majority can be difficult to come by . I’m not convinced that this permanently transfers the purse to the Executive. It seems to me that Congress still has a duty to come up with and adopt a budget, its just that the president would now be constitutionally mandated to propose a budget as well.. but that doesn’t mean Congress will adopt it.
Nor does it seem to obligate Congress from doing what it pleases, the only real change is that it seems to implement procedural standards that presumably cannot be legally overwritten by house/Senate rules.
I would have like to have seen the ‘Military Conflict clause rise to the 2/3 level though.
Am i reading this naively?
Reid has now completed his plan, a third year without a budget. This is how the Senate co-ops the role of the House, Since the precedent is set for two years of no budget, the failure to pass a budget means business as usual as directed by the executive branch.
Now only that nasty debt limit is left to get rid of. So what to do? Play brinksmanship and get the GOP to blink to increase the debt limit because the budget doesn’t matter any more. Well played Reid, well played. And if any you rubes who believe in the rule of law are listening, this is what usurpation looks like, you have been SUCKERED. Remember, if there is no punishment assigned to the crime, it isn’t a crime, the 1974 budget law means nothing because no one is going to jail over it, just like the lack of punishment for being an illegal immigrant, it maybe illegal to be here but there is no punishment for it as ruled by an idiot judge. (now you also see why judicial reform is so critical)
Next step, get the public so angry they will throw the GOP back out of power in the House because everybody will be so disappointed and disaffected at their performance leaving the Dems once again in charge of the whole ball of wax in 2012. That’s the plan folks. Now if the GOP were to man up and force a shut down, the dice will be rolled to see who gets the blame. Given the dependency of so many people upon the government, you see this is not a forgone conclusion. The entire fate of the Republic now rests in the hands of people of courage.
Of course if Obama were the evil person many think him to be, a Hugo Chavez wannabe, he would at the point would declare a state of emergency and disband the Congress while calling for a Constitutional Convention to write a new Constitution since obviously the old one isn’t working anymore. If you think I am over the top on that suggestion, then ask yourselves why did Obama support Zelaya in Honduras when he attempted to subvert the country’s voting process to name himself President for life with the full support of Chavez, Ortega and Castro???? You have been warned.