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Farewell to the Spectator
December 16, 2011 | 8 comments
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Tentative Praise for Ryan’s New Bipartisan Medicare Plan
December 15, 2011 | 3 comments
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The Day Ahead: Thursday, December 15
December 15, 2011 | 0 comments
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Examiner for Romney, National Review Against Gingrich
December 14, 2011 | 39 comments
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Paul Ryan to Introduce New Medicare Plan with Democrat Ron Wyden
December 14, 2011 | 4 comments
The Spectacle Blog
Meanwhile, the GOP does have some procedural Congressional advantages that actually will hurt the Dems’ image at no cost to the GOP: the debt limit vote.
Donald Marron notes that, while the public doesn’t like it, the Senate has no choice but to raise the debt limit. The alternative — defaulting on debt — is unimaginable. The majority party in power absolutely must vote to raise the debt limit. The minority, knowing this, is free to oppose it and let the majority suffer the public image consequences.
Yesterday the Senate voted to increase the debt limit from $12.4 trillion to $14.3 trillion, and sure enough it was a party line vote, 60 D to 39 R (one Republican not voting).
To illustrate this point, Marron went back and made a graph showing how the vote to increase the debt limit has varied with majority rule:
When the Republicans held the majority, the Democrats left it up to them to pass the increase. When the Senate was more evenly divided, so was the vote. And now the Republicans are freeriding on the Democrats.
Of course, most voters don’t know about the inner workings. They just hear that the Democrats voted to increase the debt limit while the Republicans unanimously opposed it.
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More Blog Posts by Joseph Lawler
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/01/29/one-real-gop-advantage
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sre| 1.29.10 @ 12:35PM
So how are there 60 D votes yesterday?
Is this a tacit agreement to let Kirk hang around to give them 60 votes on the debt limit or is there something else going on here?
Color me uncomfortable.
Franklin| 1.29.10 @ 3:17PM
When I heard this yesterday I was shocked that Fox News didn't raise a stink about Brown not being able to vote because he hasn't been sworn in yet.
This is an outrage after all the posturing done by the Democrats that no vote on Healthcare would be done until Brown was seated.
Little did we know that they had/have other votes planned before Brown could be seated.
Disgusting.
Franklin| 1.29.10 @ 3:20PM
PS, I think we would rejoice if the Federal government had to shut down or scale back because the debt limit wasn't raised.
Sure would be nice to put some government workers on unemployment.
Siegfried X| 1.29.10 @ 1:32PM
Voters don't REALLY care about the deficit. Sure they always answer "yes" when asked if deficits and the national debt are terrible, terrible things.
Yet when they are asked in the same polls whether they're rather cut spending or run up the national debt, a large majority of voters always says "debt debt debt".
Kirk won't be sworn in until they finish counting overseas and absentee ballots, which will take weeks. I think the date is the 11th but I don't remember for sure.
Deborah D | 1.29.10 @ 3:48PM
Yeah, about Kirk -- it's against state law, the Constitution and Senate rules for him to still be voting. Apparently, the Republicans want the excuse...but not the seat at this point in time. They could raise a stink if they wanted to.
http://politicallyempowered.wo.....why-is-ma-“senator”-kirk-still-voting/
sre| 1.29.10 @ 4:50PM
I'm a conservative so I don't really have anywhere else to go but I'm so weary of these "clever" moves by the Republican establishment. Then they wonder why they got tossed in 2006. I don't understand why they don't see the power of simple, plain talk. Did they miss the point of Massachusetts? People don't want clever parliamentarian politicians. They want plain folk doing common sense things.
Republicans should be all over this Kirk/Brown issue and, other than conservative blogs, I'm hearing NOTHING.