Rejected! Senate Votes Unanimously To Ignore Obama's Budget

The Senate Democrats don't have a budget yet they are trashing the Ryan budget. That means the only Democratic budget on the table is the one Obama submitted. It was not well revived.

Behold the beauty of bipartisanship!

No senators voted for President Obama's 2012 budget when it came up for a vote in the Senate Wednesday.

A procedural vote to move forward on the president's plan failed 0-97.

Just minutes earlier, the Senate failed to advance Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget plan by a vote of 40-57, a vote on which five Republicans voted against their party.

Democrats sought to put Republicans on the defensive over the Ryan budget, which they have described as extreme. But Republicans, who demanded a vote on Obama's plan, sought to flip the script after the later vote.

Mitch McConnell (who voted for the Ryan budget) gloated in an emailed statement.

“The President identified the problem more than a year ago when he said that ‘almost all of the long-term deficit and debt we face relates to the costs of Medicare and Medicaid.’ But Democrats in the Senate showed today that don't even want to talk about it. They rejected every single proposal to deal with it. They've chosen to ignore this crisis just like they ignored the last crisis. They're so focused on an election that's nearly two years away that they can't see the crisis in front of us.”

Of course the only news coming out of this is what a disaster the Ryan plan is and what a huge setback it is for the GOP who will never win another election or something. Meanwhile, President Dreamy's budget not garnering a single vote? Not a big deal or anything.

I don't know who Ace was talking about going on offensive over Medicare in the wake of NY-26 but it wasn't me. Still, I was talking to some folks about the same thing on Twtitter. We need to understand that Democrats are going to lie about the Republican plan no matter what it is. While it's important we sell our plan, we simply can't fight such demagoguery simply with calm, rationale appeals and math. We need to blend in a little fire and brimstone of our own. If it's remotely true, so much the better.

I'm thinking something like, "Democrats lied and Medicare died". Or, "The Democrats plan bankrupts Medicare in about 10 years. Then you'll have nothing".

We need to attack on a gut level in addition to appealing to the brain. If it involves scaring seniors and those nearing that age, fine. They, like the rest of us should be scared.

In case you're wondering, here are the Republicans who voted no on Ryan.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AL), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) voted against the proposal. Two other Republicans, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KY) did not vote.

Rand Paul voted no because he didn't think it went far enough. I think that's kind of weak tea since it's the most far reaching plan on the table. Vote yes and try and get more later. Voting no is just a vanity play.

Added: In addition to the Ryan and Obama budgets, there were two other options put up for a vote.

These totals were sent out by Mitch McConnell's office.

· President Obama’s budget (S. Con. Res. 18): No senator voted for it. It lost 0-97. Leader McConnell voted against President Obama’s budget.

· House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget (H. Con. Res. 34): 40-57, 40 more votes than Obama’s budget. Leader McConnell voted for Paul Ryan’s budget.

· Sen. Pat Toomey’s (R-PA) budget (S. Con. Res. 21): 42-55, 42 more votes than Obama’s budget. Leader McConnell voted for Pat Toomey’s budget.

· Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) budget (S. Con. Res. 20): 7-90, 7 more votes than Obama’s budget. Leader McConnell voted for Rand Paul’s budget.

Interesting thing about the Paul budget vote? Orren "Please Don't Dump Me Like You Did Bennett" Hatch was one of the 7 yes votes. Heh.

Still, it's pretty clear one party is serious about this stuff and one not so much.

posted by DrewM. at 08:10 PM

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