Federal Court Makes Major Ruling on Ballot Verification in Pennsylvania
Jon Stewart's Skewering of Trump in New York Civil Fraud Cause Just Blew...
Did the Hosts of 'The View' Do Their Homework When They Invited This...
Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced in Massive Crypto Fraud Case
Charlotte Radio Host Speaks Out About His Interview With KJP That Made Headlines
Trump, Biden Will Both Be in New York on Thursday...but for Very Different...
Democrat Flips Republican District in Alabama Special Election. Here's What She Campaigned...
Here's What Trump Had to Say About RFK Jr.'s VP Pick
VDH Explains What Any 'Normal' President Would Do About Border That Would End...
Tennessee Music Venue to Host ‘Trans Day Of Vengeance’ Event One Year After...
There Was Very Little Pete Buttigieg Was Able to Tell Us About Bridge...
An Illegal Alien Encouraged Others to Invade American Homes. Here's What Happened Next.
Time for Another Bizarre, Easily-Disprovable Lie From Joe Biden
Did Jamaal Bowman Just Help His Primary Challenger?
Fani Willis Calls Jim Jordan's Investigation Into Her Office 'Politically Motivated'
Tipsheet

How Harry Reid Plans to Kill 'Cut, Cap, and Balance' Tomorrow

In an update to my previous post,  I reported that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he's tired of "wasting time" debating 'Cut, Cap, and Balance,' and will schedule a cloture vote on the measure tomorrow.  That's not quite accurate.  Moments ago, I spoke with Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), and he told me that a cloture vote is actually rather unlikely.  For those unfamiliar with parliamentary parlance, a cloture vote is a tally of Senators that requires 60 assenting votes to proceed to an up-or-down on a piece of legislation.  Rather than putting his rank-and-file members in the tough position of voting to oppose cloture ("Senator So-and-so voted to filibuster a balanced budget!"), Reid will move to "table" the House-passed bill.  This only requires 51 votes, and its outcome is a bit harder to explain to voters.  Don't be fooled: For all intents and purposes, it kills the bill without ever voting on it, or even voting on proceeding to a final vote.  DeMint predicts that Reid, who earlier today called CCB the "worst legislation" in US history* (!), will whip his caucus hard to vote in favor of tabling the measure.  If he succeeds -- and he surely will -- CCB will never sniff the president's desk.  Senate Democrats will have defeated another Republican solution on the 814-day anniversary of the last time they introduced a budget plan of their own.  Pitiful.

Up next?  The McConnell plan (gulp), the Gang of Six framework (triple gulp), or some other apocryphal proposal like the rumored Boehner/Obama pact, or a short term deal.  Isn't this fun?


UPDATE - A senior Republican Senate leadership aide confirms DeMint's analysis via email:
 

Advertisement

Reid said he’s not going to “waste” any more of the Senate’s time on CCB and that we’ll vote tomorrow. McConnell disagreed, as he didn’t want to shorten the debate on CCB.  Reid can force a motion to table without unanimous consent, so this way he moves up the vote to tomorrow. A motion to table requires only a majority.

Even though Reid claims we’re “wasting” time, he’s got nothing scheduled for after tomorrow’s vote.  So tomorrow, we’ll be voting on the motion to table. Meaning, senators who vote “yea” will be voting to scrap CCB, and those voting “no” will be voting to continue debate on the bill.


Ah, the Senate is too busy doing nothing that it simply can't "waste" its precious time debating and voting on a bill to balance the budget and avert a default or credit downgrade.


*UPDATE - Heh.  Harry "Worst-legislation-evah" Reid supported a Balanced Budget Amendment in 1997.  What a hack.

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Recommended

Trending on Townhall Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement