Finally, a show of cojones: Senate GOP forces delay on omni-pork bill
Some encouraging news breaking tonight: Senate Republicans forced a delay on consideration of the $410 billion omni-pork spending bill. Harry Reid canceled the vote after confessing that he was one vote short of the 60 needed to shut off debate and move forward.
A Hill friend says Reid had to walk out 20 minutes after the scheduled vote and end the quorum call because he couldn’t close the cloture deal.
Senate Republicans, demanding the right to try to change a huge spending bill, forced Democrats on Thursday night to put off a final vote on the measure until next week. The surprise development will force Congress to pass a stopgap funding bill to avoid a partial shutdown of the government.
Republicans have blasted the $410 billion measure as too costly. But the reason for GOP unity in advance of a key procedural vote was that Democrats had not allowed them enough opportunities to offer amendments.
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., canceled the vote, saying he was one vote short of the 60 needed to close debate and free the bill for President Barack Obama’s signature.
Democrats and their allies control 58 seats, though at least a handful of Democrats oppose the measure over its cost or changes in U.S. policy toward Cuba. That meant Democrats needed five or six Republican votes to advance the bill.
None of the GOP’s amendments is expected to pass, but votes on perhaps a dozen are now slated for Monday night, Reid said.
The huge, 1,132-page spending bill awards big increases to domestic programs and is stuffed with pet projects sought by lawmakers in both parties. The measure has an extraordinary reach, wrapping together nine spending bills to fund the annual operating budgets of every Cabinet department except for Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs.
Once considered a relatively bipartisan measure, the measure has come under attack from Republicans — and a handful of Democrats — who say it is bloated and filled with wasteful, pork-barrel projects.
The Obamedia AP sticks in its editorial comment: “But the reason for GOP unity in advance of a key procedural vote was that Democrats had not allowed them enough opportunities to offer amendments.”
Of course, many GOP amendments aim to cut the pork. At least the piece acknowledges that a rising number of liberal and moderate Democrats have risen to oppose the bill as well.
The delay buys time not just for lawmakers, but for constituents to mobilize and make their voices heard.
Tea Party people, activate! Time to melt the phones — not just of Republicans, but of those liberal and moderate Democrats on the fence.
There is a faint, but promising, scent of blood in the water.
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Doug Ross @ Journal
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I just hope they don’t back down.
Kudos.
How many billions will it take to buy the votes of Specter, Collins and Snow? We should start a pool. The closest without going over would win a copy of Turbo Tax Tim Geithner’s 2008 income tax return.
The more light shined on this massive fiasco the better. Tomorrow is Friday, it’s a perfect time to hit the phones, send e-mails to your friends and family and ask they do the same. Everyone is worried about this, but feel helpless.
You are not helpless as long as you know that who you elected is going to be up for re-election and has to answer somewhere down the road to those that elected them! That be YOU. Recharge batteries now.
Crap. Look for one of the RINOs (Snowe, Specter, Collins, Voinovich) or more to break quickly after getting special consideration; maybe a nice million dollar study on how to cut down on the smell of port-a-potties, that way Harvard can do a study between between the hog study and this, producing many pages of nothing, and missing the general conclusion that they are linked only in Republican inability to tow the line. Is it even possible anymore to find some backbone and common sense in the Senate? They continue this wild spending spree, and every buck they spend helps devalue what is left. Wall Street numbers don’t lie and are a great benchmark for how quickly the obummer team is tanking consumer confidence…who wants to bet the stock market loses another couple hundred tomorrow based on this stupid and remarkably nearsighted move? Maybe the downer-in-chief will give another inspiring speech on how we’re supposed to ignore the “ups and downs” of the market as just another perplexing irony of life, but it’s obvious democrats just don’t understand how capitalism works. Then again, if socialism is their goal, maybe this is their game plan to kill capitalism, in which case they’ll wind up with neither, but the American people will pay dearly for another late night stab in the back by a faithless senator.
I’ll be on the phone tomorrow AM. Count on it.
OOOOOOOO…. good job guys! Way to go out on a limb there. You forced a delay on a bill.
Isnt that like dropping your MetroCard in the street while jaywalking in Manhatten?
Tea Party is Kansas again this weekend. They now have their own web site.
And yes, I read Sens. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Bob Bennett of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Arkansas and Kit Bond of Missouri comments to mean “there’s not enough pork in there for me yet”! So I do expect they to be bought off with some small helpings.
My Kabar is ready…. keep the fight going….. If I can call and rail against liberals here in MN… you all can do better…. get off your butts and fight!
Next up: $500 billion “loan” to shore up the FDIC.
Mr. Dodd’s bill could also give the FDIC more firepower to help address “systemic risks” in the economy, potentially creating another source of bailout funds in addition to the $700 billion already appropriated by Congress.
Any bets on how low the Dow-Jones will go? My bet is 3500 by June.
Cajones? Cajones?
Might I remind everyone here (including Michelle,most respectfully), that 40% of the 9000+ earmarks have been authored by republicans.That fact seems lost in this circus routine.
So Reid is sending the message to his comrades not to vote to cut out the pork. I agree with other posters that Reid and company wil lbe on the phone, conference calling all the RINO’s to see how he can buy there vote over the weekend.
#11: Not all earmarks are bad. The problem here, as Tom Coburn railed about on the Senate floor today, is that none of these earmarks are open to debate. Reid insists that senators vote up or down on the entire package: no debate, no amendments.
I will grant that there are probably earmarks inserted by Republicans who would just as soon keep them under the radar. A pox on both their houses.
Somebody watching a little Power Rangers here and there?
Don’t back down now!
No, and I understand how they work…. but at this point it might be prudent to just kick back and let the Democrats spend themselves into oblivion, especially since Obama was openly anti-earmark during the campaign.
Maybe Arlen Specter has started to worry about his evaporating poll numbers.
Well, clearly they already have some Republicans, and probably the usual suspects, as Reid is only 1 vote shy and 6 Dems are balking. By my addition that makes 7 Rs already going for it?
These politicians are making me sick. Both sides.
Like the sacking and pillaging hoards spilling down from the steppes of Asia, they who call themselves Democrats ravage the banks, loot US industry and steal everything of any value from the government of the American Republic and it’s people, giving it to themselves and caring nothing about the damage they’re doing now, and to future generations or who they hurt or how.
They choose from among themselves those who have shown that they are the worst of liars, cheaters, thieves, perverted worthless hooligans, and show no conscience or shame that their actions and way of life prove this to be true.
They strike coins with their own images to honor themselves like the Caesars of old and create new placards and flags with their images to superimpose over the distinguished and honored ones that have gone before the brave men and women and meant so much to the citizens of our nation for the past two and a quarter centuries. They are twice dead and will pay the penalty for their arrogance.
History will revile them, and rightly so.
1 freaking vote.
We really need Coleman to pull that out somehow.
The only problem is once a government program, entitlement, etc. has been passed it very seldomly ends.
FINALLY, some people are paying attention. … or rather, they’re forced to pay attention.
It seems the people aren’t finished yet.
Same-O Same-O. Delay, make a deal, ADD more, vote and pass.
One vote? Dirty Harry won’t lose any sleep over that,
Sorry to be so negative this morning, but our congress-critters are on a spending spree. The few faithful will vote NO but…..
I will continue with my calls and faxes
and pray for commonsense to prevail.
God bless our Military and the upcomming
generation.
Or not, since they control most of the history departments too.
Since nobody has read the bill, I’m just repeating what I heard John McCain say on yesterday’s Hannity. Per McCain 40% of the pork in this bill is from the GOP.
If that’s true there’s nothing noble going on here.
What about Snowjob and Collins? Are they holding firm in their quest to help “the one” get this trainwreck back on the tracks?
I’ll be on the phone with their office today, but it always just falls on deaf ears.
Thad Cochran of Mississippi (R) is voting for this omnipork.I don’t have time to post the link, but here is what I read:
Call him:
202-224-5054
601-965-4459
662-236-1018
228-867-9710
I’m listening to my local talk station, and Sen. Collins is calling in and taking calls. I predict she’s going to get an earful by the callers.
Cojones? Whose were they and how did they get him to serve them up?
Who brung ‘em? First pair sited in the Senate in years. We should congratulate them.
Don’t worry, Obama will go through it line by line and scratch the pork. Really, he said so.
Yup. It’s hard at first glance to distinguish between real budget items and pork in a 1200 page, $450 billion document.
Thing is, if all is left in the sunlight for a while, the pork will start to reek. Which also explains the importance of the swine odor ammendment.
Promising, but I’m not getting my hopes up. For the last eight years, any time I suspected the GOP would grow a spine and go on the attack, they whimpered their way right back into their cage and accepted their beat down. So I’m not getting my hopes up.
Some real spine would be brutalizing their own pork mongers so they can at least stand on solid ground when attacking the dems on pork and waste. But that would make sense and is therefore not possible for any politician, repub or dem.
A bit OT – today is the first day in more than 6 months that Obama’s name isn’t somewhere on the MSN.com home page. His stock must be falling too.
Remember, obstruction and delay is what the Founding Fathers wanted….. the only reason the Liberals got away with so much is because they moved fast. I can only give them credit for that….. slow em down and bog them down
Took the day off today and will do what I can to nudge my Idaho Senators to hold the line. Now I need to go outside and clear a couple of inches of Gorebul Warming off of our walk and driveway.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE (mo-lone lah-veh) Translation: Come and take them!
It is a start, but the real political Ju Jitsu is when each Republican withdraws their pork request from the bill and allows the democrats to pass it on their own.
Doing so, will demonstrate that the Republicans have learned their lesson.
Ewww! Keep us updated!
If the Republicans don’t show some guts and stop this insanity they’ll be eating their cojones . . . because that’s all they’ll have left to chew on.
I bet it’ll break below 6000 next week and drop at least another 500 by April 1st.
How’s that for a fool’s day? Winning the election BAMN, but losing 1/2 the DJ in 120 days. And kudos to Dubya for getting the bailout ball rolling.
Worked real well didn’t it?
And obamas going to do it again…
time for harry to pull ready teddy off his deathbed for one last vote for the commie team. yes 40% of the earmarks are from gop rinos. 60% are from dems. it still hasn’t sunk in to these a-holes that they are spending their grandchildren’s future. may their families go into the poorhouse, and may they rot in hell for sending them there.
Michelle, I heard something yesterday that bears looking into. IIRC, Cavuto (maybe someone else) said that most of the earmarks were pet projects that languished over the past few years. Furthermore, some were even originally proposed by dead and/or former congress-critters who have since been replaced in 06 & 08.
This begs the question: What is the breakdown on those undead earmarks?
Of the thousands of earmarks, just how many were written by those no longer in office and who were these authors? Is it just a couple, 10 or even 1,000 earmarks?
Andy,
This pause has provided the authors of the earmarks an opporunity to “Come to Jesus.”
OT, but did any of you see this story about Obama giving Gordon Brown a 25 DVD box set as a gift? Here is part of the story:
How the hell does that relate to anything living or dead? I don’t care of “JC” himself has an earmark, it is still blatantly wrong. Stop trying to justify a wrong by another wrong.
There is less to this than meets the eye. For the Republican windbags, this is not so much a fight over run-away spending as it is a tantrum over being dissed.
You know how Republicans like to posture as conservatives and then deliver exactly the number of votes to deliver victory to the Democrats. Pork is pork.
The conundrum is that if the crybaby thieves don’t get all they want when they want it, continued economic malaise will be blamed on “obstructionist Republicans”. I’d like to force feed the Dems their whole enchilada and make them choke on it when their failure is made evident for all to see.
The average Democrat needs to face the uncomfortable truth that you can’t spend your way out of financial problems. Some have already learned the hard way but they still want the honest taxpayer to cover their markers. Not gonna happen.
With 40% of the PORK attributed to the GOP, I would not go so far as saying they finally got COJONES… Maybe GUINEA PIG TESTES, HUH???
Whooppppeee. Like others I am skeptical. Probably delaying so they can get more pork in for their own districts. Where was this disdain for pork when the Repubs controlled the Senate? I am glad they slowed it down, but I just don’t trust any pol these days. Their sole goal is to get re-elected by any means necessray (oh and avoid being called names by the lefties). We have no statesmen any longer.
Now if we can lock Snowe, Collins and Specter in a closet, maybe they’ll hold out!
24Klady said,
Amen to that! Before long, my senators and representative will know me by my first name! I called my Rep. Lamar Smith (R), and asked them to reassure me that he didn’t have any pork in the bill. I was told, “Yes, but he voted against it.”, like that made it all better. I responded, “Stop with the pork nonsense!! It’s my money!” He responded by saying, “But it would benefit your district!” I told him, “I don’t care! If we needed some project, we can raise the money here at home! Stop with the pork!” grrrrrrrrrr
Even if Coleman somehow pulls off the miracle, ie, justice, in Minnesota there are at least three traitors who will vote Democrat if needed.
We already know that.
In almost unaltered form, this new pork bill will pass.
The part I thought was funny was the Brtiain uses PAL (25 frames per second), whereas we use NTSC (30 frames per second). Assuming he would even want to play them, he’d need a special DVD player.
I wonder if Collins and Snowe will pay any attention to this poll on TV 13 WGME
in Portland Maine.
http://www.wgme.com/newsroom/poll/news_results.shtml
Oh crap, the market is dropping again. Damn it!!!
Who in the administration is making a speach now???
STFU!!!
I wonder if it would be possible to construct a jammer that would disable the President’s teleprompter. Such a device might save the world’s economy from total destruction.
Are you kidding? Some of the world thinks we have a functional person running the government. Can you imagine the chaos if the delouded masses understood what a danger this guy is??
The market would drop even faster.
This demonstrates why during President Bush’s years it was so very important the republicans did not use the nuclear option.
I do not believe that the GOP senators unity is due to not having the opportunity to offer amendments.I believe that they didn’t get the opportunity to stuff it with more PORK.
Old Harry will offer a few some tidbits on that bill will sail through.
Yeah. Now the question is whether they’ll shave it down a mite or pork out so more. Either way, woe is us…
This is a pointless exercise in obstructionism (the point being to put Republicans in the newspaper at the expense of the people’s business). Here’s an analysis
True, but, unfortunately, there is a faint but scary scent of a turd in the punchbowl ERRRRR Al Franken looming on the horizon, too.
*out*
Flyover#57-
Thanks for the chuckle.
(Munching popcorn) Dobby the house elve must have his knickers in a wad over this one, eh?
Really LGM.. any analysis that cites RINO’s isn’t going to fly.
And this whole thing about giving up when faced with insurmountable odds…… is that some sort of liberal tactic? It sounds very French-like.
The repubs aren’t really interested in stopping the spending program. They just need to look like they tried.