Another Standoff
Posted: September 23, 2011 Filed under: Federal Budget, Federal Budget and Budget deficit, U.S. Politics | Tags: FEMA funding, government shutdown, Harry Reid, John Boehner 14 CommentsLet’s see. Selling out on tax cuts to millionaires was supposed to be the end all to all stand offs. Didn’t 
happen. Putting together a likely unconstitutional supercongress was supposed to be the end all to all stand offs. Yeah. That really worked well, didn’t it?
Things in our federal government are so broke and so dysfunctional that the day-to-day business of governing is threatened on a quarterly basis. This is nuts. Republicans offered up a bandage approach in the House. Harry Reid’s gone Dirty Harry on them.
Washington lurched toward another potential government shutdown crisis Friday, as the House approved by a 219-203 vote a GOP-authored short-term funding measure designed to keep the government running through Nov. 18 and Democrats in the Senate immediately vowed to reject the bill.
“We expect a vote fairly quickly,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Friday morning.
In an after-midnight roll call, House Republican leaders persuaded conservatives early Friday morning to support a stop-gap measure nearly identical to one they had rejected just 30 hours earlier. By a narrow margin, 213 Republicans supported the plan, along with six Democrats; 179 Democrats opposed it, joined by 24 Republicans.
The bill, which will keep federal agencies funded through Nov. 18, passed over staunch objections from House Democrats, who opposed a provision that would pair increased funding for disaster relief with a spending cut to a program that makes loans to car companies to encourage energy efficient car production.
But House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) victory is likely to be short-lived. Reid said late Thursday that the measure could not pass his chamber, with a vote expected sometime Friday. A Senate defeat would leave Congress at a new standoff.
“It fails to provide the relief that our fellow Americans need as they struggle to rebuild their lives in the wake of floods, wildfires and hurricanes, and it will be rejected by the Senate,” Reid said of the House bill.
Without a resolution, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund will run out of money early next week and the rest of the government would be forced to shutdown Oct. 1.
What exactly did Agent Orange and the Rindettes offer up that made Harry mad?
On Wednesday night, House Republicans failed to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded beyond Sept. 30, as 48 Republicans cut ranks with their leadership and voted against the measure (as did all but six Democrats, who object to the bill’s level of disaster aid and cuts to a clean vehicle manufacturing program). House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was reportedly incensed at the members who abandoned him on the vote, deriding them as “know-it-alls who have all the right answers.”
But early this morning, the House was able to pass a CR, after Boehner and the Republican leadership added a $100 million cut to a Department of Energy clean-energy loan program. Other than that cut, the bill was exactly the same as the one the House defeated on Wednesday. But the additional cut was enough to entice 23 Republican members into flipping their votes.
Boehner has to be one of the worst Speakers in history. He couldn’t walk a dog through the house successfully. Here’s more on Reid’s response.
Democrats opposed the GOP bill en masse because it partially offsets $3.65 billion in funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with a $1.5 billion cut to a separate Department of Energy manufacturing loan program.
“The bill the House will vote on tonight is not an honest effort at compromise. It fails to provide the relief that our fellow Americans need as they struggle to rebuild their lives in the wake of floods, wildfires and hurricanes, and it will be rejected by the Senate,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement Thursday night before the House vote.
“I was optimistic that my House Republican colleagues would learn from their failure yesterday and move towards the middle. Instead, they moved even further towards the Tea Party.”Reid said the Senate was ready to stay in session next week, potentially canceling its scheduled recess. The House bill would fund the government through Nov. 18.
By pushing ahead with a tweaked version of his original bill, Boehner is hoping to jam the Senate with time running out.
It hasn’t even been a year yet and we’ve already had three hostage taking situations. WTF is wrong with our country? We can’t even help our own people any more that have been devastated by flooding, tornadoes, wild fires and hurricanes with out turning in to a government is the problem moment?
update: Bohner lies in press conference.
“With FEMA expected to run out of disaster funding as soon as Monday, the only path to getting assistance into the hands of American families immediately is for the Senate to approve the House bill,” Boehner said in an official statement Friday morning.
Well, that’s not exactly true. The House legislation received only 36 votes in the Senate. As noted above, the Senate passed a stand-alone disaster bill last week, which the House could take up and pass instead of scattering to the four winds.
On the Senate floor just after the House bill was tabled, Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reluctantly agreed to hold a Monday vote on compromise legislation to top-off FEMA’s disaster account, and keep the federal government funded. McConnell urged Reid to hold a Friday vote, but Reid asked for delay, with the expectation that cooler heads will prevail over the weekend. McConnell, Reid, Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will negotiate through the weekend to break the gridlock.
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My understanding was that the House bill cut pretty much all the renewable energy programs in order to “pay for” disaster relief. I’m actually with Harry on this one – holding FEMA hostage for ideological reasons is pretty vile.
Of course, Harry will fold the way he always does.
The biggest problem is that there can’t be real negotiations when Boehner can’t deliver anything.
That’s the whole problem with the Reid macho stance–we will not budge–because they fold every time. And the Tea Party will obstruct anything and everything like a spoiled and unruly child. The people had their vote and now we all have to live with it.
I flipped in and out of the debate last night. I thought Perry shot himself in the foot. As the debate went on he stumbled and mumbled in brain-freeze territory. It was Romney’s night and there was a hard sell of Romney’s performance in the post-debate programming. I flew over several conservative sites and the message was clear–Rick Perry was well off his game [if he has one] and Romney is far more likely to take the nomination. There were a lot of moans and groans of resignation. The GOP establishment is pulling all the levers; Romney’s their man.
But overall, the debate was depressing, again. The boos for the gay soldier were dispicable. Three times now, we’ve heard the true voice of the GOP fringe: they love executions, they’ll cheer letting the sick die [that’s what risk is all about, according to Ron Paul] and they have no problem denying civil rights, even if your butt is on the battle line. Add Bachmann and Santorum to the mix and you have crazy-time in America.
Romney looks sane in comparison. And maybe that’s the point.
The GOP establishment is pulling all the levers; Romney’s their man.
Good to know! It IS the The GOP establishment call. They give out the marching orders
I’ve been saying this for months now: If the GOP wants to win, they simply cannot go with another brain-damaged moron from Texas. They have to go with a guy who can appear moderate. Romney’s the only one they’ve got. He sucks (and I’m not voting for him), but compared to Obama I think he will look like someone who can actually make a decision and won’t take four years to “grow into” the Presidency. Obama is a total embarrassment. Where the hell is he in this new fight? All he does is “call upon” the GOP to be reasonable. That does as much good as “calling upon” your two-year-old to stop saying the word “NO!”
I read somewhere (maybe it was here) a story that the conservatives hate Obama so much, they are ready to vote for Romney based on his electability, even though they don’t like his more “moderate” opinions on teh wimminz and gayz. So much for that alleged roadblock.
Romney’s not moderate. He is utterly without principle or ideology–just like Obama.
William Kristol was calling for Chris Christie again in that article I linked to down thread called Yikes from the National Review.
LOL, I didn’t say he was. I said he “appears” moderate. Trust me, I am no Romney fan. I’m just talking strategery here. If I were running the RNC, The Glove is who I’d pick.
The hard core right wing nuts want to execute all liberals — so they seem to be in favor of any blood letting. This isn’t my opinion — these were the words of several religious right winger I interviewed in the late 80s. These people have not changed their minds — they want to execute liberals, feminists and gays in particular.
I remember I told one wing nut that if he got his wish list of executions that the streets would run red with blood — he said, “Yep — it sure would!”
My theory has been that Perry was persuaded by GPO PTB to run in the primaries in order to split the fundie rightwing whack job vote and ensure a Romney win, Bachmann scared them silly.
Since Huntsman is not doing better than he is, Romney is they only near-rational Republican candidate. What’s unnerving about him is that it’s really hard to know how he will actually govern. In MA, he governerned like a NE Moderate; since then, he seems to have moved more rightward with every passing year.
I won’t be voting for any of the R’s, but I do think if Romney gets the nod he gets the presidency. Shudder.
But that might stiffen Democratic spines, at least those still in Congress by that time….
Obama said he thought winning reelection should be easier than winning the D primary and then the presidency,..because he’s done it already.
He doesn’t seem to get that most people didn’t know him well, didn’t know much about how he governed, and believed the advertising campaign. Now they do know more about him, and many see he has not governed as he campaigned, that he lied to them. Gonna be a tough, tough slog.
However, another factor will be who the Wall Street Gang Banksters want.
jawbone said:
‘I won’t be voting for any of the R’s, but I do think if Romney gets the nod he gets the presidency. Shudder.’
I think you’re right. Romney has an excellent chance of knocking Obama out of the WH. And I shudder right along with you [although a Perry presidency would probably give me an aneurysm].
I also have no intention of voting ‘R’ in 2012. But I will not support Obama. It’s like a toss-up in how fast we want the country to take its last breath.
Dismal and depressing.
You think Romney governed like a NE moderate in MA? I disagree. He cut income taxes and then raised fees on everything that poor and middle-class people have to pay for–so that the budget was balanced on the backs of lower income people. That’s not moderate, IMO.
Anything useful that happened under Romney in MA only happened because the legilature was controlled by Democrats.
I’ll be voting either third party or leaving the top of the ticket blank. If Warren isn’t on the ticket, I might just stay home.
Thanks BB — I wanted to know what your opinion was of Mittens.
Depends on what happens in Feb — I’ll vote in the Republican primary — only if I have to. There is NO democratic primary — so the only way to vote — since I’ll be down South (Snowbird) in Feb — the only vote I’ll have will be to vote GOP. There is no Demo party in WA state — it is the 0bamacrat party. Ironic for the primary election — the GOP counts the vote and the Dems make up a number.
Come election nite November — I might stay home and watch DVD movies.