House overcomes Tea Party opposition to pass short-term spending bill
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 2, 2011.
/ AP Photo/Alex BrandonUpdated at 4:38 p.m. ET with statement from the White House
Following a debate in which Democrats and Republicans blamed each other for the nation's out-of-whack balance sheets, the House today passed a bill to keep the federal government funded for another three weeks while cutting $6 billion from this year's budget.
The bill's passage came in spite of dissent from Tea Party Republicans who said they could not support piecemeal spending cuts. Additionally, they objected to another spending measure that did not revoke funding they find objectionable, such as funding for Planned Parenthood or President Obama's health care reforms. Fifty-four Republicans voted against the measure today, as well as 104 Democrats.
Once the bill passes in the Senate -- where both Democratic and Republican leaders have expressed interest in advancing the measure -- it will keep the government running until April 8. At that point, Congress will have to pass yet another "continuing resolution" to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year beyond that.
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), like many other Republicans on the House floor today, excoriated Democrats for failing to pass a full 2011 budget last year, thus setting in motion the struggle over short-term spending measures.
"I will tell you the outrage here is that we are having to do this because the majority, the former majority, when they had the majority in the House, the majority in the Senate, and the White House, failed to pass an appropriation bill," he said. "They left the American people and this country with this pile of crap."
Democratic Rep. Mark Critz (Penn.) remarked that Republicans have also so far failed to find a workable budget solution.
"This isn't leading. This is playing games," he said. "It's time to stand up and do the right thing for this country."
The Republican-led House did, in fact, manage to pass last month a budget bill for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year that cut a historic $61 billion. However, that bill soundly failed in the Senate, where Democrats objected to the sweeping cuts.
The $6 billion in spending cuts in the bill passed today are largely taken from the president's budget request and the Senate Democrats' own proposal that failed last week in the Senate. The cuts include $3.5 billion from 25 programs, including $50 million taken from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. National park programs and unused Census money are also on the chopping block. The remaining $2.5 billion is cut by eliminating funding for past earmarks. (Take a look at the full list of cuts here.)
Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio today railed against Republicans for ignoring potential tax revenues from big banks or companies like BP. "You can't balance a trillion dollar deficit on 14 percent of the budget," she said. "Let's take it from those who have much and give nothing.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said today she could neither endorse nor rise in opposition to the bill because it is "necessary to proceed" to keep the government operating.
She added that the federal budget should be "a reflection of our national values."
While several Republicans opposed today's bill, Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) reminded his colleagues that with this piece of legislation, Congress will have cut over $10 billion from the budget in just two weeks.
"The American people sent us here with a clear message last November," he said, in support of the legislation. "They want us to end the partisan bickering and get the work done."
Update: White House Press Secretary Jay Carney released a statement saying today's vote "gives Congress some breathing room to find consensus on a long-term measure.""The President urges the Senate to pass this bill to avoid a government shutdown that would be harmful to our economic recovery," Carney said. "But the President has been clear: with the wide range of issues facing our nation, we cannot keep funding the government in two or three week increments. It is time for us to come together, find common ground and resolve this issue in a sensible way."
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Ominous Onus's Omens of Corporatist Elitists !
Some think that life is but a corporate but you and I have been through that. I hear the riders a coming. Hollering winds all along the watchtowers. Winds of change are rattling our windows. Roberts Jan. 2010 Court ruling of unlimited funds, of corporatist, will hence forth be legal to purchase our politics. Gauntlet has been delivered to the our people.
No identification of donors funds required ! Therefore we now observe how Koch is first in line to take advantage of this. Chinese, Iranians, and Germans corporations have an avenue of approach to our democratic principles. Roberts has unlatched the draw bridge and Koch is lowering it for the riders that are approaching, and the winds begin to howl. Dust in the winds filling the hallways of our serene democracy.
Sounds of silence from the populace. Camelot besieged and infiltration of the ominous riders enter.
"We The People In Order To Form A More Perfect Union" are interrupted. Voices fill the air, sound the alarm! Trumpet's have been silenced. Voices fall before the onslaught of the riders. Chaos, fear run within the halls of freedom.
Pied Piper with his dancing prancing Fox seeks to calm the distraught subjects. Voices cry Union, we must Unite, as the riders ride on by. Carving out the multitudes into their separate groups of subjugation.
Ahh& in ruin and polluted beyond appreciation of life. Fair Atlantis submerges beneath the waves of corporatist corruptive pollution, never to rise again. Farewell dear Atlantis.
stupid right-wing troll.
It results in private monarchies claiming the government of the people is broke and needs to run like a business which means the monarchs will take the commons, the public lands, the public utilities, the interstates and privatize them for profit. One cannot even attempt at sharing in the KOCH monarchies "KOCH industries". It is the 3rd largest privately held corporation in the world. It is not traded on any market. Even if it were, the privately held stock markets that run in collusion with the private global banks are running a ponzi scheme so little trickles down to the common investor who cannot compete with the insider knowledge of the ones who manipulate the market and execute their trades through high tech computerized trading.
Yeah, let's tax the rich and help the economy.
---------------------------------------------
Having CEO Angela Braley's annual compensation alone which went from 8 million a year to 15 million a year since this "economic downturn" hasn't begun to trickle down yet. Keep waiting. When the streets are full of guys wearing suits and dress shoes with holes in them selling apples on the street corner, the fruition of "trickle down" economics that Reagan spoke of will have been achieved. This time will constitute the new posterity for the United States.
That is absolutely false. Look at the situation we are in today for proof!
What business owners need is customers, not tax breaks. The middle class is the key to American prosperity. That is fact that can never be disputed!
Though I do know of very wealthy people that actually do help others and don't live as if they are the lords of the manor.
We can't put all the "rich" into one narrow paradigm any more than all the "poor" or all the "liberals/conservatives/whatever".
However when the few have taken the voice and power away from the many, the American experiment is officially over. We fought a revolution (tea and all) to stop this sort of societal structure -- why in hell do people (tea and all) want to go back? It has to be ignorance, it sure is not patriotism.
And they want to compromise somewhere, say around 35 billion.
The problem is 1.5 trillion. The problem is 1,500 billion.
Either side can completely give into the demands of the other side. It frankly doesn't matter, neither side is dealing with the scope of the issue - because they don't agree with the american public.
So rather than be honest and say - our plan is to overspend 1.5 trillion, because we are still gambling that fixes the economy, we are betting the whole nations future that it does - as a representative democracy our representatives are saying, we know better than you - the public.
So we aren't going to be honest, we are going to spin, spin, spin like a top, but the truth is, we disagree with the voters and we are exercising our right to over rule.
I hope they are right, but they aren't. They are not correct at all.
Have any of you ever done a household budget and not included your income?
Wow, this "spending, spending" mantra that the hugely overspending GOP is now trying to make the entire national dialogue is so patently one sided and in that, wrong. But it feeds the ignorant and fearful, so they buy into this spin, spin, spin without a glance at the WHOLE picture.
Enjoy the ride while and steal as much of the public loot as you can before 2012, you are signing you own political death warrants.
Rich people got that way because they worked harder.
.......................................................
It's sad some people are so suserviant and dependant that they cant see that the wealthy are always that way mainly due to the labor of others.
If you empty their droolcups nice, they'll let you drink the contents.
Let's pose a query, Maurice.
Q: What do Al Gore, John Kerry, and Kos have that Dick Cheney, Bill O'Reilly, Wayne LaPierre, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ted Nugent, Mitch McConnell, Karl Rove, Mitttt Romney, and John Wayne don't?
A: 1) A pair. 2) DD214's
Lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas, Jack.
Why do you people not only tolerate but cultivate hypocrisy? Seriously.