PAYGO.... In case we needed additional evidence that bipartisanship is pretty much impossible, we got some yesterday.
The Senate took a vote on extending the federal debt ceiling -- without which the United States would go into default. All 40 Republicans voted no.
The Senate took a vote on requiring Congress not to pass legislation that it can't pay for. All 40 Republicans voted no.
The Senate took a final vote on passing the overall plan. Thirty-nine Republicans voted no. The 40th, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), skipped the vote.
The paygo vote was especially ridiculous. The idea is to "impose a requirement that key parts of the budget must be paid for with spending cuts or tax increases to prevent the federal deficit from increasing." It's known as the pay-as-you-go approach, or "paygo" -- if policymakers are going to increase spending or cut taxes, they have to figure out a way to pay for it at the time.
A similar rule was in place during the Clinton era, when the deficit was eliminated altogether. Republicans -- you know, the ones who claim to have the high ground on fiscal responsibility -- scrapped paygo in 2002. Soon after, GOP policymakers stopped trying to pay for their policies, and Republicans quickly added $5 trillion to the national debt, and left a $1.4 trillion deficit for Democrats to clean up.
As part of the effort to address the GOP's mess, Democrats have embraced paygo as a matter of common sense. President Obama, in his State of the Union address, urged Congress this week to "restore the pay-as-you-go law that was a big reason for why we had record surpluses in the 1990s."
Just a few years ago, a handful of Senate Republicans -- Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, George Voinovich, and John McCain -- argued that paygo should be brought back. They were unsuccessful in persuading their Republican colleagues at the time, and yesterday, they voted with their Republican colleagues to reject the idea that they'd already embraced.
And that, in a nutshell, is why the notion of bipartisanship with a failed and discredited minority is so hard to take seriously. GOP lawmakers are so reflexive in saying "no" to everything, they end up opposing ideas they support, and at that point, reason has no meaning.
—Steve Benen 8:35 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (28)
GOP = Fiscal Insanity. Fiscal Responsibility was always a complete farce for Republicans. Why their followers believe it ever existed is consistent with the conservative myth psyche: just keep pushing the same talking points regardless of reality or truth.
Don't worry, I'm sure McCain will be grilled on the obvious inconsistency the next time he's on a Sunday talk show.
No comments:
Post a Comment