With The Senate Back, The House Embarks On Votes Sure To Fail
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The House will undertake a vote today that they know will be blocked in the Senate. So, now what?
From Punchbowl News:
The House will vote today on a short-term government funding bill coupled with language to hike the debt limit until 2022. Republicans are going to block this in the Senate. If you still think GOP senators are going to cave, we can’t help you. Republicans from Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) to Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) made it very clear on Monday they were in lockstep with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in blocking a debt limit hike.
So what’s Plan B? Glad you asked — because we did too. It is an obvious question and no one has an answer.
We asked Pelosi Monday evening what will happen if Senate Republicans block the combo CR-debt limit bill Democrats have proposed.
“Well, let’s hope they won’t,” Pelosi responded to us. When we noted that Republicans have repeatedly said they’re going to reject it, including again on Monday, she said, “Well, let’s hope they don’t.” They will.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said this when asked about a Plan B: “Not that I know of.” Clyburn repeated that line again as he entered the House chamber.
The Democrats have an obvious fallback here: They can add a debt-limit increase to the reconciliation package by amending the budget resolution. This would be very time consuming, but it’s doable. This tactic would trigger two Senate “vote-a-ramas” and would need to kick into gear sometime in the next few weeks to meet the mid-October deadline for raising the debt limit.
“The speaker has been pretty adamant about not doing it that way,” House Budget Committee John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) told us.
Pelosi told us this: “We put out our path in the continuing resolution.” In other words, she’s not forcefully ruling it out, but not yet conceding that it is the likely path.
I’ll start with my usual reminder that Congress has one job constitutionally – appropriations – and that they continue to both shirk it and thus endanger the salaries of 4 million feds and federal contractors (even temporarily) remains maddening. Here ends my sermon.
Pelosi is trying to force Schumer to do something – probably about the filibuster. My best wishes to her.Report
Why is no one asking what the GOP’s plan B is?
They are the ones failing hereReport
The GOP’s plan B is to take back power from the Democrats an continue on their rampage. That’s all they are focused on. That’s all they care about.Report
To me this is the most core criticism of the GOP that I never hear anyone on the right answer.Report
They don’t answer because they don’t care. If they can’t be on top, they intend to burn it all down so no one else can.Report
So, Progressives in the House beat down the Speaker. Good for them. She and Schumer need to be reminded that the Democrats are a big tent caucus and that there are times to go big – and this is one of them. Manchin – who has been quietly saying $1.5 Trillion is his upper limit for a couple of months – has finally admitted he’s no liberal (!) and Sinema is off in a unique world of one where she can campaign on lowering drug prices and then do fund raising dinners with drug lobbyists and no one will notice.
Were I Schumer, or his chief of staff, I’d tell Manchin the price for going down to 1.5 Trillion is two things – tanking the fillibuster and a public admission to the press by Manchin that the $3.5 Trillion is a ten year number which, on an annual basis, is half what we spend on the DoD. Manchin won’t get 10 Republicans for his voting rights alternatives no matter how low he goes on the infrastructure and spending bills (which is what I think he’s been trying to horse trade all along) so he needs to clearly know the price he will pay to get his preferred dollar amount.
I’d also remind the Majority Leader that he and his slim caucus majority represent 41 Million more Americans then Republicans, and sitting on his hands won’t preserve his majority.
Because Progressives are right – Democrats across the board campaigned on bold spending initiatives designed to deal with huge infrastructure and economic problems, and Democrats need to deliver before American political cynicism consumes them at the polls next year. Saying “we aren’t as bad as Republicans” only worked once, and while it was a hugely critical juncture, it won’t work again.Report