House Delays Vote On Boehner Plan Due To Rewrite
The House was supposed to vote on John Boehner’s debt reduction plan, but that was before the CBO looked at the plan:
House Republicans have postponed until Thursday a vote on Speaker John Boehner’s deficit reduction bill while party leaders seek to rewrite it.
The decision follows an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office finding that the legislation achieved less in budget savings than Boehner had first claimed.
The CBO said the bill would cut the deficit by $850 billion over 10 years, not $1.2 trillion, and it threatened Boehner’s pledge for spending cuts to exceed any increase in the debt ceiling. The bill would authorize $900 billion in additional borrowing initially.
GOP leaders were already having trouble cobbling together to pass the bill amid opposition from conservatives.
“We’re here to change Washington – no more smoke-and-mirrors, no more ‘phantom cuts,'” Boehner said in a statement. “We promised that we will cut spending more than we increase the debt limit – with no tax hikes – and we will keep that promise. As we speak, congressional staff are looking at options to adjust the legislation to meet our pledge. This is what can happen when you have an actual plan and submit it for independent review – which the Democrats who run Washington have refused to do.”
Well, not really, the CBO just released a score on the Reid plan that’s better than the first draft of the Boehner plan. Nonetheless, this delay in the vote makes the odds of any kind of a deal by August 2nd even more unlikely since it shortens the time both sides would have to come up with a compromise. Assuming they are capable of compromising.
The Democrats have compromised until their eyes popped out. The Republicans are the ones incapable of compromising. Enough with the false equivalence.
Oh come now, we can’t let a good meme go to waste, can we? Especially when the $hit really hits the fan and the blame has to be placed somewhere…much easier to swallow “they’re all at fault” rather than “it’s all the crazy teabaggers’ fault”…
Unbelievable is all I can say. That the Republican leadership in both the House and Senate can’t even control their own membership to support John Boehner’s awful bill is astounding. The Tea Party members are a minority. Where is the political muscle that their own party needs to bring to bear on these wackos who have no concept of governing? It should have been brought on a week or two ago when Obama and Boehner were suggesting a bill that at least had a modicum of balance with some revenue increases. If they refused to come along a mix of Republicans and Democrats might have been able to forge a coalition to get it passed. Imagine that. Government working like it’s supposed to. But the spineless Republican leadership just seems to keep caving to these folks and nothing seems to be an adequate amount of destruction for them short of the country defaulting. Unfortunately at this point I’m not sure there’s adequate time for “leaders” to get their troops to fall in step and forge any kind of a deal. Mind you not a deal that would actually benefit the country but at least one which might avert utter catastrophe. It’s time to use all the political might possible and isolate this fringe element of the Republican party.