What do Republicans and Democrats have in common?
Neither party can seem to muster a bill to head off the sequester looming on Friday. Two proposals were raised in the Senate today to address the sequester. Both failed.
The Republican proposal would have let the cuts stand and allowed the President to decide on the cuts. If you’re scratching your head and wondering if I made a mistake there, I didn’t. Yes, it was a Republican proposal. The idea was to make the President responsible for spending – and thus, the political fall-out. But the idea of ceding power to the President didn’t sit well with all of the Republicans in the Senate: about 20% voted no. Those voting no included a curious mix of bedfellows with conservative Republicans Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rand Paul (R-KY) voting in line with the more liberal Susan Collins (R-ME) and the more moderate John McCain (R-AZ).
The Democratic proposal nearly squeaked by but ultimately fell short with a 51 to 49 vote with three Democrats, Kay Hagan (D-NC), Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Mark Pryor (D-AR), crossing the aisle to vote no. That proposal basically mirrored the President’s call for targeted cuts and higher taxes. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has indicated that he won’t support any proposal that doesn’t include revenue-raising. Sen. Reid also changed his vote at the end to “no” on the measure, bringing the official count to 52 to 48 but that move was procedural to preserve the opportunity to revisit the bill (isn’t politics fun?).
So neither side ended up with a win. But even more frustrating? The measures were expected to fail. It was all for show. Because that’s a super use of our resources in Congress, right? Imagine if the real world really worked that way, that every idea that was proposed in the workplace was intended to fail.
What’s the next move? Don’t expect much to come from the House. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-OH) has thrown up his hands, saying that it’s time for the Senate to take action. Clearly, the Senate isn’t on board with that idea.
